simple garden roses

Garden roses are extremely popular right now for weddings and events, highly coveted for their variegated colors, full, luscious petals, ruffly textures and intoxicating fragrances. While the garden roses that are cultivated for cut-flower use tend to be very expensive, now is the time to cut and enjoy the garden roses growing in your yard... or your neighbor's yard! During the months of May and June, the rose bush in my yard in Denver went wild! Now I see the roses in Los Angeles are going crazy, too. They don't have a long vase-life, but they sure are lovely for the few days that they will last in water-- and they will fill your home with their heady scent!

Images | Floral Design | Styling by Lauryl Lane.

weekend wishes

Image by Lauryl Lane.

weekend wishes

Image by Lauryl Lane.

weekend wishes

Image by Lauryl Lane.

weekend wishes

Image | Floral Design by Lauryl Lane.

weekend wishes

Image by Lauryl Lane.

Language of Flowers, Part 2

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With Father's Day looming ahead, you might be wondering what to get to express your love and appreciation for your dad. Unlike mothers, fathers don't usually inspire gifts of flowers. But even macho dads might welcome such a gift if you could explain to them the message that you've endeavored to convey through your strategic choice of the individual flowers making up the bouquet. And if your dad is in a creative field, like mine is, he may appreciate the ephemeral beauty of a gift of flowers, too! As the old saying goes, it's the thought that counts: and a bouquet of flowers filled with traditional meanings is more than just a thought.

When looking at meanings for flowers, don't forget about the foliage! Foliage doesn't always have a separate meaning from it's flower, but if the flower meaning is apropos, than you can apply it to the foliage as well. Gardenias, for example, have amongst their many meanings one that is specifically geared towards men, "good luck to a man." To give your dad that masculine "good luck" message, as well as letting him know that he is splendid, that you esteem him, that you are grateful for his lasting friendship with you and to recognize the strong bond of affection between you, choose gardenia foliage, freesia, sunflowers, bupleurum and stock. Sunflowers also stand for power, and even as adults, many children still think of their fathers as the most powerful men on earth!

There are a wide range of flowers that would be appropriate for an arrangement for dad, such as ginger, which can stand for strength, or gladiolus, which can mean "strength of character." Whatever you choose for your father, don't forget to tell him about the message behind the flowers- because that's where the true meaning of the gift lies!

CREDITS | Photography by Bonnie Tsang | Floral Styling + Text by Lauryl Lane | Graphic Design by MaeMae Paperie| Location at Palihouse, West Hollywood | Floral meaning resources: Victoria’s Dictionary of Flowers, Wikipedia Language of Flowers, FlowerMeaning.org.

Language of Flowers, Part 1

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Flowers are one of the first gifts that come to mind when we think of our mothers on Mother's Day, just as we know to give flowers to our lovers on Valentine's Day or to smooth things over after an argument. The giving of flowers is ingrained into modern culture, and we know that flowers can say "I love you" or "I'm sorry," but did you know that there is a long tradition of individual flowers holding very specific meanings? Red roses are widely known to say "I love you," but they can also stand for respect, courage and even embarrassment! Different flowers can have a variety of meanings, both positive and negative, so it's important to know which flowers to pair together in order to get your true message across.

First published in Paris in 1818, Charlotte de La Tour's classic Le langage des fleurs first brought floral meanings to the masses. Although meanings had long been associated with different floral specimens, the Victorians, in particular their poets and artists, used the meanings of flowers to convey messages in art, literature, and even in day-to-day settings. de La Tour's book gathered known floral meanings rooted in ancient history and laid those meanings out, creating a reference guide that we still draw from today. While we no longer attend balls carrying nosegays that can indicate if we are unattached or not, we can definitely use the lost language of flowers to convey meaning through a simple gift.

There are many resources online for discovering the meanings behind various flowers, so next time you're shopping for a floral gift, do some research first! Choose a color scheme (colors matter- in many cases, different colored flowers even of the same variety can have vastly different connotations!), find out what various flowers in that color scheme mean, and then visit your local flower shop and ask the floral designer if you can choose individual flowers to have made up into a special bouquet.

For a mother's day gift, you could choose lavender, for devotion. Alstroemeria stands for prosperity- and who doesn't wish prosperity for their loved ones? Ivy stands for dependance and endurance, both qualities that mothers have in plenty. The pink pixie (or mini) carnation reveals the meaning of a mother's love, and gratitude, again very apt for such an occasion. And the ranunculus demonstrates radiant charm. While your mother probably won't know these meanings outright, you can include the meanings on your enclosure card, and it's a given that she'll be delighted by the thought and detail you put into such a heartfelt, personalized gift.

Let's bring back the lost art of using the language of flowers!

CREDITS | Photography

by

Bonnie Tsang

| 

Floral Styling + Text

by

Lauryl Lane

| 

Graphic Design

by

MaeMae Paperie

| 

Location

at

Palihouse

, West Hollywood | 

Floral meaning resources

: 

Victoria's Dictionary of Flowers

, 

Wikipedia Language of Flowers

, 

FlowerMeaning.org

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the best view in the world

Although I definitely consider myself an Angeleno, the East Bay will always be my second home. I was born in Berkeley and lived in Oakland until my mother and stepdad migrated our family to the MidWest. My Dad has remained in the Bay Area, and now my eldest sister and her husband have settled back into the Oakland Hills after years of living on the East Coast. This is the view from their home, and as much as I love Los Angeles, I have to admit that there is no prettier view in the world than this view of the Bay Bridge, the Bay, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge. Heaven on earth.

Image by Lauryl Lane.

back in the saddle

I've been traveling for the past two weeks, wonderful wonderful days of work + play in my home city of Los Angeles. I'm energized and inspired after spending time with some of my best friends in the wedding industry, after getting lots of great counsel and advice from people who know what makes me tick. I have been jotting down ideas and goals, pages and pages of them, but my number one priority now that I'm back with my {lovah} in Colorado? Finish organizing my office!!!

It seems a little silly to finish this project when {lovah} and I have decided that we'll be moving when our lease is up in two short months, but I figure that the more organized my office is now, the easier it will be to pack and relocate when the time comes.

I still need to clean out my files and do some purging, but things are coming together. I have loads of styling jobs and lovely weddings on the horizon, but I also have dozens of projects from the past few months to share with you. I've missed blogging, and I'm looking forward to getting back in the saddle!

Images | Styling by Lauryl Lane.

maemae paperie

One of my dearest friends is Megan Gonzalez of MaeMae Paperie. I've been a big huge fan of Megan's work for years now, and my move to Colorado finally presented me with an opportunity to commission my very own MaeMae original!

Megan designed these darling cards for us-- they were printed as postcards, both front and back, and then we slid them into see-through velum envelopes for a little protection in the mail.

I sent "inspiration" images to Megan of the Rocky Mountains that we drove through on our trek to Denver, and she translated the snowy mountains, green pine trees, and blue, blue skies into these fun, graphic drawings.

Oh Megan, how much do I love your work? Let me count the ways....

If you are as enamored with MaeMae as much as I am, than get thee to the MaeMae Trunk Show! It's sure to be a day of total fabulousness. It's Saturday, March 17th at Urbanic Paper Boutique on Abbot Kinney in Venice, California. Put Megan and Audrey together in a room, and I have no doubt there will be MAGIC in the air!!!

strike

I refrained from posting yesterday in support of the SOPA blackout. In fact, other than posting one image on instagram in the morning (before I realized what day it was!), I stayed off the internet all day long. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Google+, no blogging, even minimal emailing. I figured that refraining from using the internet at all would make a more important statement than just delaying my blog post by a day.

I feel very strongly about our freedom in this country. I hope you do, too. Limiting our internet access in any way is an infringement on our personal liberty, and I'm pretty horrified that this issue has even come up.

But it was nice to have a day of being mostly unplugged. It turned out to be the most productive day I've had all week! And I even had time for a little Martha.

Image | Styling by Lauryl Lane.