While taking a nice one-hour long stroll along the River Thames on Valentine’s Day, we chanced upon some heavily discounted Daffodils buds going at a really low price just because they weren’t opened in time for the annual celebration of love. We decided that we had to bring it home because they were just going to chuck it away and not receive any love at all.
So of course, we bought it home and I’ve been obsessed with it since! Today is the fourth day since we’ve brought them home and more than half of them have bloomed into this gorgeous vibrant yellow gift.
These were how the Daffodil buds looked when we first bought them. The heads of the flowers were completely closed and we didn’t even have a hint of the colour the flower would be.
Can you tell that I have a slight obsession with Bundaberg too??
As a traveller, often with no access to beautiful vases, I have to improvise with the recycled glass bottles from the various drinks that we con Summ. Fortunately, we had some bottles of Bundaberg which were short enough for the Daffodil stems.
This concludes my little spontaneous photoshoot with my Daffodil obsession and recycled Bundaberg glass bottles. Hope you’ve enjoyed this.
Feel free to read my other Floral Styling Adventures on Echevaria’s Journal.
Please note that this post was not sponsored by Bundaberg.
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Featuring the most gorgeous Chrysanthemum Baltazar Flame, this red number is definitely adding a pop of colour on our kitchen counter.
Here we’re sharing some the flower palette that we’ve used for this exquisite arrangement:
Techniques used in this arrangement was learnt from my course at McQueens Flower School. Feel free to read more about my flower journey here- Floristry Course at McQueen Flower School.
As usual, we employed the chicken wire as our mechanic which is a great alternative to green floral foam for this flower table arrangement.
Here’s wishing everyone a prosperous, healthy and thriving Tiger New Year! Shall this year be full of hope and opportunities! Enjoy your Chinese New Flower Arrangements with your friends and family too.
]]>Inspired by using daily home essentials (yes, wine is an essential) as flower vessels, I took apart an arranged floral bouquet from one of the flower classes at McQueen’s last week and created these series of floral vignettes for the home.
Vignettes are small curated moments, often made up of groupings of display objects or ornaments displayed on shelves, a table or a small corner of a space.
In this vignette, the space chosen was an obscure empty corner on a ledge in the guest bathroom. The colour palette chosen was a very simple mix of purples and greens, accented with gorgeous, round Alliums. The vessels used were a used wine bottle striped of its labels and the core of a roll of unused toilet paper.
The emerald sea green in the wine bottle was a great choice as it created a seamless amongst the colours of the foliage and brought out the purples in the arrangement.
Absolutely in love with the dusty green shades on these Eucalyptus
The two balls of Alliums really popped through the wild character of the seeded Eucalyptus.
Flower Vignettes are a perfect addition to any empty corners or shelves in your home. Just a simple splash of colour will brighten up your mood. Come join us in our next Floral Arranging Workshop to learn more about Flowers for Home Decor.
]]>Being stuck in the pandemic and Working from Home in the last 15 months, I held a Full Time job in an Architectural Firm while running Echevaria.co on the side. Hours were crazy solely from working on my architectural job, and piled on top with the preparations done for the workshops, the wedding decor and all the bouquet deliveries. It started to wear me down.
I needed a break from this continuous cycle and take a step back to relook the bigger picture. Life is not a short sprint, it is a marathon. I felt like I was just sprinting everyday, waking up only to look forward to going back to bed. It was not sustainable.
That’s when my partner and I decided that we needed to leave for a little bit and get a clearer headspace of our situations and plan ahead. Here’s a bit of caveat though, we definitely did have help and was in a position where we had a friend who was willing to take us in in London, that’s the only reason we could take this leap.
This break turned out to be the best thing that has happened to us both. We had all the time to ourselves to dig deep and reevaluate our situations and plan for the near future. It’s said that “Plans do not always go on plan, but not planning at all is a plan to fail.”
Best thing I did for myself at the end of 2021, was to sign myself up for a One-Week Floral Course in the world-renown floral school, McQueen Flower School. The school opened my eyes to the world of Floristry where I learnt not only the ways of sustainable mechanics for Event and Installation Floristry and even got insights of the Business aspects of the Industry. It was completely eye-opening.
If you’re a fellow floral designer/ floral enthusiast reading this, do check out their Flower School, it covered a whole range of amazing skills and exposed us to a myriad of different flower palettes.
Here’s how my journey went!
Day 01- Hand Tied Bouquets
Day 1- we explored the Fundamentals of Spiraling, which was interesting to me. Considering that I’ve been making bouquets for the past 2 years I thought this would be something that I was familiar with, but it turned out that flower stems are much thicker than the sticks I usually use for our Succulent Bouquets, so this was definitely a new skills for me!
Day 02- Low Vase Arrangements
Day 2 saw us going through sustainable Low Vase Arrangement Mechanics which I truly appreciated. We learnt to work with the material called Agrawool, which is a sustainable alternative to green floral foam which is still very commonly used in the Floral Industry now. Agrawool is made from Basalt and a type of Sucrose that is degradable, compared to the floral foam that is made of petrochemicals that is completely non-biodegradable.
Considering this course aside, the fact that Flower School are so heavily emphasising sustainable methods is such an important point. This creates such a strong foundation of the practices of all the floral designers moving forward from this and it such an encouraging experience.
Day 03- Arrangements in Various Vessels
Day 3 was definitely an eye-opener because it was a day course about Larger Scale Installations that were products usually for Commercial Clients or huge houses. Seeing the different combinations of vessels and flowers used just made me realise it was possible to create with almost anything!
Day 04- Tall Vase Arrangement & Foliage Wreath
Day 4 had learning objectives that were perfect for seasons products- tall vase arrangements and wreaths, were products that were popular during the holiday seasons. I truly enjoyed this course as it was something I saw Echevaria.co growing into!
Day 05- Large-scale Installation
Day 5 saw us running through a huge Installation over a Fireplace. It had the prettiest, most romantic palette of lilac, magenta and pink, celebrating the arrival of Spring with the use of four different varieties of Tulips.
The past week has been an absolute dream! I can’t be more thankful for four tutors who have guided us through this week - Sophie Powell, Christophe Berreterot, Theo Geoffe, Anastasia Mcgrellis. Their passion to Floristry has truly inspired me and I can’t wait to create amazing things with this set of newfound knowledge!
In the following weekend, I deconstructed some of the works from this week and created some Vignettes at home, do take a look at them - Styling- Floral Vignettes at Home.
]]>Seeing the mixture of the textures and shapes was so captivating and made me immediately want to create
In line with our sustainability ethos, the theme of the reception table was to create an interactive and fun botanical installation whose elements could keep giving. The idea was to double up the leaf cuttings used to decorate the table as a secondary door gift to the guests at the wedding.
This way, not only do the leaf cuttings get a second life after the event, the guests also get a chance to be new plant parents.
Introducing our first set of the Sustainable Succulent Workshops in 2021! After some trial runs and feedback, we’re so proud to announce that the Succulent Workshop for Valentine’s Day 2021 was a success.
During the workshop, we covered the Introduction of Succulents, the mechanics behind our Signature Succulent Bouquets and Care Tips on how to take care of the succulents in Singapore’s humid tropical climate.
We were completely sold out and are so thankful for the raving reviews after the session.
Sign up for our Newsletter or get Notified on our Waitlist to be informed when our next Succulent Bouquet Making Workshop is released!
Photography by: Tan Jing Ren
Venue: NOSH Produce
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Starting out as a small business means I get to enjoy the perks of innovating and making iterations to the product list as we slowly grow.
An assumption when we started was that our bouquets had to be a complete replication of floral bouquets that were mostly colourful and vibrant. As time passed, we realised that there was interest in Succulent Bouquets that were in their common green shades. That, in a way, was in turn a win-win situation for us as our common green succulents are mainly imported from regional countries and did not need to cover that high of a carbon footprint to arrive to our studio as compared to the coloured succulents, which often come from countries much further away.
Our Evergreen Succulent Bouquet is currently one of our Signatures in our product list as it encompasses the true meaning of a sustainable bouquet in Singapore.
Succulents brought in from our regional country means that it is transported over via road freight which uses less energy and creates less pollution. Since these succulents were grown in a tropical country, the chances of them being nurtured back to it’s hundred percent is higher.
We absolute love the uniqueness and the aspect of sustainability this brings to the floral industry, get our Evergreen Bouquets here.
]]>I was never blessed with the opportunity to receive a fresh floral bouquet until late 2019, not because I didn’t meet my “tall, sexy yet cute” other half before that, but because he was the practical sort and stood by his belief that flowers don’t live more than two weeks long. Lo and behold, in the Autumn of 2019, he surprised me with the biggest fresh flower bouquet ever for my graduation, filled with all my favourite flowers - sunflower, hydrangeas, a couple of roses and sprinkled with bunches of chamomile!
My First Fresh Floral Bouquet
(Please pardon the poor photography standards, all photography skills were learnt on the job hahaaa)
Fast forward to 2020, after 3 months of solo traveling in parts of Europe, I came home feeling rejuvenated and inspired by the vibrant cultures I’d experienced. Creative juices were flowing and I embarked on multiple creative projects - from embroidery, clay sculpting to bouquet making. After rounds of personal iteration and “user-review” (by that I meant loads of feedback and advice from my ever-supporting friends).
From that, Echevaria.co was born.
Our First Bouquet
My first bouquet is still probably the one I enjoyed making the most. The excitement from prepping the succulents, to putting them together and presenting it as a bouquet was so adrenaline filled. My mind was just screaming, “WOW OMG WOW YAS” throughout that journey.
From there on, we the first publicity photoshoot was done completely in-house, with family members as photographers, etc. The entire process was daunting yet so rewarding.
Our First Product Shoot in Singapore
Classic Succulent Bouquet in Small
Our First Bouquet
And from there, the rest is history. Echevaria.co is one of the few designers in Singapore in the sustainable floristry scene and we pledge to continue being at the forefront of sustainable floristry and to minimise unnecessary floral waste.
Our goal is to grow into a multi-disciplinary design studio, involved and inspired by botanical elements.
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