Festive Lunch

New Flower Drum Club STORE

This year you don't need a Chirstmas list, because I have the one stop shop for all of the ultimate flower enthusiasts out there!

Sweet Pea Tee $49.00

Tropicool Print $79.00

Peony Lover Tee $49.00

Pillow PJ's $45.00

California Flower Print $79.00

gumtree garden

Last week was quite monstera'ous (plant joke, get it?)

I was asked to create a pop up garden for the Gumtree Pop Up Garden Bar at The Rocks in Sydney. The coolest thing about this event is that everything (or nearly everything) was sourced from gumtree! And I had to cover it all in flowers!  At first I was like you want me to flower bomb EVERYTHING? - whaaaaat. And the morning of the bump in I was still like - whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. It was one of those jobs where you know its going to be awesome but you have absolutely no idea how its all going to happen. We wiped the markets clean of ivy, causing quite a stir and numerous complaints about the girl with the glasses buying "too much ivy" and every long lasting floral thing in sight was snapped up and thrown in the car. On Wednesday we unloaded the vans and emptied out the contents of a small jungle in the oldest lane way in Sydney - Kendall Lane.

Caitlin, Anamai and token new girl Hattie were there with me to make magic happen and all day long we built and chopped and sniffed and styled  until we ran out of flowers�

I WANT YOU

New Flower Drum Club

Have you heard about the club? 

Yep I've started a fully fledged badass flower lovers club. 

And its called New Flower Drum Club. 

The most prestigious and greatest smelling flower club to ever exist. 

 Here is the right to select membership based on each individuals legitimate flower enthusiasm / overall badassness. You can prove your unstoppable love for flowers in the following ways. 

THE TOTALY COOL TOTE BAG

THE PEONY TISHRIT

THE PILLOW PJ'S

More items coming soon!

ps. i think its nearly time for a club meeting? what do you think?

HH x

have love will travel

My footfriendly friends URGE FOOTWEAR invited me yet again to be a part of their latest campaign

Have Love Will Travel.

To me, a road trip is not a family holiday memory. The infamous trek from Sydney to Byron.. Ive never done it. And whatsmore I'm still not even allowed to. I have a 4 hour max limit on car travel. 

When I was a baby flower drum we used to fly everywhere in our own aeroplane. We had (still have) a Cessna 180. The 4 of us would rug up, put our headsets on and blast off around Australia. There were no stops at McDonalds and no unscheduled toilet stops. My whole life was planes. We even lived across from the runway at Melbourne airport. And whenever we ran out of milk, my dad would fly to the corner store to get more. Kidding.

For me now, travelling is a huge part of my job. Whether it be the early rise and hour long drive out to the markets, going direct to the growers farms out far far away, flying overseas for inspiration or interstate for special events.. I am now out and about more than ever. I love it when a collaboration makes sense. And I am stoked to share this little clip with you.

take it easy peony

You all know how I feel about Peonies. Whether its just one or one hundred. 

I love / hate them.

Like...I love them I really do, but last year it was just like a peony overload and they sort of lost their razzle dazzle. You know. Like if you buy a special outfit to wear on a fancy occasion, but then you decide that you love it so much that you are going to wear it every day, and instead of getting it dry cleaned (like the tag says) you end up just chucking it in the washing machine. And then into the DRYER. It happens. Admit it. 

The thing is, they are just so irresistible... But this year, I think they should be reserved just for special occasions. Deal?

The Flower Drum Club PEONY tee - now available

www.theflowerdrumclub.bigcartel.com

hitched issue 3

Hitched Mag: Issue 3 // A Cuppa with ME!

Tis the season

Weddings really are such a funny thing. For two people its the biggest day of their life. For me, its another Saturday. And in the summer, its not just a Saturday, its a Saturday that I am not hanging out at the beach with my friends. But luckily I love what I do, and I love the people I work with and I just so happen to count flowers as my friends. So when me and my friends (flowers) are on the way to a wedding - we are really excited. Tired but excited. And then when I'm thinking about all the cool things that we are going to do at the wedding, then I get really really excited. 

From the garlands to the posies and the kilometres of ribbon in-between I can safely say, I wouldn't have it any other way. Thank you to everyone for getting married and letting me have the best time ever making your bloomers. 

Flower Bombing Class 20th October

Flower Bombs & Flower Bombing are two totally different things.

It�s like knowing how to drive, and having a drivers license. You know what I mean. 

As the creator of the OG Flower Bomb I can do both, and not only that. I can teach you both.

I am so excited to announce that I will be doing another flower bomb workshop in October which will be hosted by Makefest. Sonya the bird behind  - Tiny Bird, my favourite store in Avalon is now hosting a range of workshops as Makefest. IN AVALON! 

Thats right northern beaches bombing recruits. Im on your side.

To find out more or to make a booking just visit 

NEW FLOWER DRUM CLUB 

oriental fighting stix

Blossom Branches - or as I like to call them Oriental Fighting Sticks are all the rage at the moment.

It seems everyone is out there cutting down the branches perhaps from their neighbours yard.. oh and out at the markets, boy are they dangerous. Imagine hundreds of florists all whizzing through the market each with armfuls of bountiful bundles of blossom... 

an all out flower war is just waiting to happen I tell ya!

We shot some beautiful photos of some ornamental pear blossom for LVELAND and I just loved them so much, I wrote a little Haiku about them. 

Just kidding I don't know how to Haiku. Do you?

ORIENTAL FIGHTING STICKS / by holly hipwell

If you have just had your car cleaned � don�t buy these.

If it�s really windy outside� don�t buy these.

If you don�t like mess � don�t buy these.

If you don�t like being poked in the eye- don�t buy these

If you need self-defence weapons � buy these.

PS. No siamese fighting fish were harmed in the making of this post. Totally different thing. 

LVELAND

LVELAND IS A PLACE FOR A RIDICULOUSLY TALENTED BUNCH OF FRIENDS TO CREATE AMAZING THINGS TOGETHER. WITH AN EMPHASIS ON COLLABORATION AND ORIGINAL CONTENT, THIS VIRTUAL HIVE OF CREATIVITY IS BUILT OFF JAMIE�S DREAM OF HAVING A PHYSICAL PLACE WHERE CREATIVE PEOPLE CAN SHARE THEIR IDEAS AND TALENTS IN EXCHANGE FOR AN AMAZING PLACE TO WORK: A RANCH CALLED LOVELAND. THE RANCH DOESN�T EXIST YET SO WE�VE STARTED BRINGING THE DREAM TO LIFE VIA THIS BLOG. IT�S GOT LOVE + GUTS. IT�S LVELAND.

JAMIE BLAKEY / FOUNDER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF ONE TEASPOON

I'm gOING TO BE CROSS POLLENATING MYSELF HERE AND THERE.

 So if you can't find me here, ill be over at the ranch... 

behind the screams

" Sneak Peek " "Behind the Scenes" "Collaboration"

When did everyone assume that they were so exclusive that anyone with eyes might be interested in seeing what you had for breakfast or a hint on your latest collab with your cat.
I'm sick of it!

For all the amazingness you see when you attend a fancy soiree / wedding , days, weeks and months of planning, stress and lots of cups of coffee have gone into the making of said "soiree" 
And theres one thing you can always count on.  Nothing goes to plan. 
Your confidence in making snappy decisions is reflected only by how well you know the client / bride / bridezilla. What do you do when your white tulips open up pink? What do you do when your shipment of peonies don't get cleared by quarantine? What do you do when you really really need to go to the toilet and you are stuck on the harbour bridge?
The answers to this and more you will find in my latest segment  
"Behind the screams" an appreciation aid for the work that goes into the final product.

See these roses? I got up at 4 am to go and pick this bucket up- along with about 50 billion other buckets of beautiful blooms. These ones were my favourite though. And they have my name on them.
P.S I also ordered many many peonies, and as bad luck would have it, the entire shipment coming in from Peony island was DESTROYED on arrival. They were contaminated with unidentifiables. Luckily, I had ordered two lots from different suppliers. So I was still in Peony heaven.  Clever ayyyy.

Just because its midnight, doesn't mean its home time! After hours is the best time for flower arranging. You would think I would be tired after getting up at 4 am... but I'm not. I'm drunk! Not really. Maybe a little bit.

This is Lily (appropriately named) she is finishing off the flower wall that I started making, but then I didn't want to finish it, so she did it for me! 

Here we are unloading all the flowers at the venue. We had 3 vans / cars full of flowers. These are just some of them.
The rest are stuck in the loading dock because I couldn't find my access swipe card.

While all the heavy lifting was happening, I ducked out to watch the Bride hop into one of her 6 Rolls Royce wedding cars in her  exquisite Vera Wang wedding dress. Jarnell was one of the most hilarious Brides I have ever worked with. She would call me while at the dentist asking if she should have tiffany chairs or ghost chairs at the reception. We decided on ghost chairs and then changed them to tiffany chairs just two days before the wedding. I miss talking to Jarnell every day.

This is Caitlin, here she is getting tea lights out of the packet and putting them into the votives. Ever wondered who does that? Caitlin does it! Not only does she do that, but she made those floral garlands and hung them up.

SEE! Here she is in action. My other assistant flower enthusiast Anamai was also helping, but I don't have a photo of her. But she was there. Promise. In fact, she went back to the venue at midnight and packed everything up! Have you ever wondered who does that? Amazing Anamai to the rescue in her cute red van! toot toot.

Just before 6pm and we were done! This wedding gave me the most severe case of FOMO I've had in a long while. I was so jealous of all the fun the guests were about to have. I thought about adding my name to the seating chart and ordering up a Gin & Tonic. If I stayed I probably would have had the lamb, and left some room for dessert
(cake was made by Hello Naomi) 
But I didn't. 

something is coming

My studio had a little face lift over the weekend. 

I am super stoked because some super stokey doke things are happening in here.  

Its great. Really great.

And even greater things are about to happen. 

Shine your shoes my friends, its time to get ready. 

The Flower Drum Club is coming!

Excursion: BALI

I hate winter. Im pretty sure thats not a rude thing to say and that a lot of people will agree with me. In the freezing cold morning, its usually raining and your alarm goes off. Vrooom vroooooom vroooom - thats my alarm noise.

You battle with snoozebrain for 15 minutes and then you drag yourself to the bathroom and cling on the heated towel rack while you brush your teeth and think about what kind of non track pant looking track pants you can wear to work.

But it gets worse. When you are a florist you have to do it at 4 am. And while you are standing there clinging to the heated towel rack you are not only thinking about non track pant looking track pants, but you are also thinking about a whole outfit that doesn't make you look like an overweight homeless burglar. The flower markets are actually the coldest place (after antarctica) in the world. 5 am and the trolleys crashing into your shins, other florists are hurrying past and accidentally sticking sticks of cherry blossom in your earhole and while thats all happening you are trying to avoid being watered down by growers emptying streams of water from their flower buckets straight through your shoes and into your socks. it really socks. (funny / not funny)

Oh, and I bet you didnt know this -  as you are bending down to take a whiff of those creamy jonquils, their little petals are actually shooting out tiny beams of electrifying frosticals that burn your nose hairs and give you an ice cream headache. 

So to avoid all of this hideosity, I  fired winter and WENT TO BALI!

Theres not a huge flower scene over there, but I will tell you theres a huge lets have a lot of drinks and tiny tacos at Mexicola scene and thats exactly what I was after. 

But then I met Wyan.

This is Wyan and his tiny pineapple.

This is me having the time of my life

Worlds tiniest orchid or worlds largest hands?

I stumbled upon Bali Orchid Garden, and thats when I met Wyan. 

My awkward orchid tour guide. 

At first I thought he had memorised a script and maybe we both had no idea what he was talking about... but quickly I figured out that he was in fact very hilarious and very awesome. On more than one occasion he would sing out bad girl RiRi's 

SHINE BRIGHT LIKE A DIAMOND! (and RiRi, you better look out. Wyan's got the moves)

Thank you Wyan for telling me about so many wonderful things that I might have already forgotten, and showing me flowers that have now been filed into my floral rolodex. Teeny tiny orchids, black orchids, furry shiny leaves, sniffy vanilla orchids, peacock trees and devil orchids. 

Orchids, orchids orchids.

Enough. 

CENTRAL MARKET

The big market in Denpasar was a bit of a let down. I went up and down the levels and poked through stalls of spices, bamboo thingies, jewellery, fabrics and meat. The cranky lady in the mauve top (who seemed a bit over dressed for the heat) led me to the flower area and when I got there I just thought.

IS THIS IT?

I bought a couple of bunches from the lady in the very large hat and went back to Mexicola.