Flowers with Laura and Succulents

I have had such fun with flowers lately!

I have a good friend in my neighborhood who has a floral business (Flowers By Laura).

The week before Mother's day there was also a local high school dance and so she was swamped with orders and asked if I would want to help.

Uh....YES!!!!

She taught me some basics and put me to work...continuing to teach me along the way.

These are all mother's day bouquets...didn't get pictures of dance flowers but it was fun to help with the corsages and boutineers too.

The one above right was what I put together for my own mother and the one below ended up sitting in our church that Sunday.

Since then I've also helped with a wedding or two...

 but the most absolute fun was putting together arrangements for our Stake Conference!  We were expecting Elder Wakolo from Fiji to be our visiting authority so Laura ordered a bunch of Birds of Paradise.  So FUN!  They came all tightly closed up and we learned how to gently open and spread them out...who knew? 

They were super fun to work with (albeit a bit nerve wracking since they could (and did once for me) so easily break as we opened them up).

Turns out, Elder Wakolo had something come up and was unable to attend :)

Elder Pingree came instead and was a delight!

I know he enjoyed the tropical flowers and the lei he wore on Sunday that was given to him by Abby's hula teacher :)  He joked about feeling the aloha spirit in Cache Valley.

I've also been into succulents lately!

These two sit on my front porch...

They've been fun to give as gifts...

I think it's a nice personal touch to add in a little figurine or fairy garden accent that means something to the one you're giving it to.

Abby's friend loves elephants...

my sister in law is into moons because of the meaning of her name...

and I also found some cute little hedgehogs but forgot to get a picture of them before I gifted them away.

Anyway, I found some great tins/planters at hobby lobby on sale so I've just been buying fun succulents when I see them and putting them together in fun (I'm using that word a lot) combinations.

I hope they don't die too soon...

(Update...another succulent party!  I found a bunch of fun/different looking ones at Walmart the other day...I had to buy a ton few :)

My workspace...

I found these cute little owl planters on Amazon!