SWEET VALENTINE

I wish you all a happy week of love and warm wishes that you celebrate this wonderful holiday with someone special to you (be it a romantic sweetie, a good friend or a furry pet.) 

This series of mini shoots was put together with the extraordinary help of Erika Kessel. Together we brainstormed, sourced and created; Erika took the reins styling and staging it all, then I followed, shooting the whole thing. 

I loved creating these little scenes. These three were an ode to Valentines day, a holiday that is both salty and sweet; and always celebrated with at least a hint of red. Many more photos after the jump (I loved all the shots, I couldn't filter down to just five!)

blushing pinks

Is it spring yet? Apparently not since we were just dumped with 3 feet of snow, but before that, I could swear we were getting close. I had already picked armfuls of forsythia, magnolia and all available shrubbery - determined to force them all into early bloom. The forsythia was the only one that has really come through, the others just appreciate that I brought them in and saved them from the crazy weather.

Last weekend a friend asked me to help out and design a bouquet for her boss in NYC, and of course, I jumped at the chance. It will still be at least a month or two before the earliest of the early blooms open and start working their magic here in CT, so even though selecting blooms in NYC's flower district is somewhat against my personal goal of using only fresh and local material, some exceptions have to be made in the winter months, especially when there is literally nothing available.

My main instruction for this bouquet was soft, romantic, feminine but unique. I pulled some of my favorite flowers and let them do the work. Does anyone else prefer budding Amaryllis to open? I definitely do. The other flowers used were tulip, spray rose, carnation (I love these even though they get a bad rap. I used a dirty brownish pink variety so they would be less recognizable), rananculus and a bit of green and white foliage, from a plant I don't know. After delivery I transformed the leftovers into a second bouquet.

thinking back

This crazy blizzard which brought about 3 feet of snow yesterday also brought me a pretty rough cold. It seems like I am sick more than I am not sick lately, which in itself is pretty bizarre since I don't remember ever being under the weather this often,  but colds are also nice (once the exhaustion and muscle aches fade away) because they force you to slow down (and get posts up.)

Last week I received an email from Ada with photos of two darling little dishes I had been working on when visiting late last year. Ada finished them up, doing all of the firing and perfectly painting the gold luster on the edges. Seeing them instantly transported me back to that awesome extended visit and my first little cold that I had while I was still in CA. I have to say that being sick in an indoor tent is pretty luxurious and I would recommend it, along with lemon ginger tea to anyone not feeling well!

images from top to bottom, left to right: the porcelain & gold edged bowls I made with the help of Ada @ TiffinStudios / delicious breakfast of super healthy crackers, dried mango, cheese and coffee / working from the dining table & fresh herbs growing in the kitchen / in-process lemon & ginger tea / the indoor tent and projected movies with some friendly felines.

brunch

I live on the East Coast, and most of my friends live on the west, in San Francisco. For almost a month and a half I visited SF, from late October to early December, and had a blast catching up with friends over coffee, drinks and dinners. 

Ada and Irina, two great college friends, teamed up one weekend morning and together we created an amazing brunch, complete with all the normal breakfast fare, plus some delicious extras like homemade jam and biscuits, fresh espresso and truffle salt. 

I love Irina's space. It is a renovated garage that her boyfriend Kenny and his cousin have been converting for a few years. The front half of the space is Kenny's functional motorcycle repair space and in the back are the living spaces. All are designers and their functionally-modern aesthetics are well represented in the space and all of its details.  I was so excited that we were going to have the brunch in such an amazing space that I created a few flower arrangements for the event. 

After 4 hours of casually cooking, chatting, making messes and then cleaning them up, we had enjoyed some really great catchup conversation and had an excellent brunch. Then, we went to Muji. It was a prefect day.

More photos of the space and our brunch after the jump!

in the studio

It is interesting and amazing to reflect back on life. The New Year makes us do it.  My life in the last year has been exactly what I hoped for and nothing I could have predicted - which is what (I think) all of us are looking for really - adventure and momentum. It is also amazing to look further back and think back to my childhood self. I realize not that much has really changed, although almost everything has.

One of my best early childhood friends, Caitlin, is now a professional opera singer. I remember the first time I ever heard her sing (about 5 years ago) and I almost fell out of my chair. I was simply stunned that such an amazing sound could come out of the person who I had know for so long; a person I had always known loved theater and music - but had never known could sing like that.

Besides being a vocal stunner, she has a naturally theatrical presence, which brings an unexpected dose of fun to her performances. I have seen her do both the buttoned up professional performance and fun, comedic casual performance. She rides the line between the two well, but when there is an opportunity for extra fun, she always grabs it.

While visiting for the winter holidays, Caitlin and I teamed up and had a blast in the studio, playing and creating like we did when we were young.

Caitlin Mathes is currently performing in Portland, Oregon at the Portland Opera. You can hear some of her amazing vocals here or learn more at http://www.caitlinmathes.com.  Styling and photography by ellen kyle / Found & Created.

HAPPY 2013

I helped my parents host a New Year's Day party yesterday afternoon for a few close friends. With the help of my mother and grandmother working prep, we created a fairly simple, but really delicious spread of fresh fruit, veggies, cheeses, salads - even mom's homemade pickles!

Toast with Toast

I have been busy lately. I have also been traveling, meeting up with old friends and making many new, working on a lot of projects which are taking me in many amazing an different directions, and now, taking a moment to celebrate the end of one year the the start of another. 

While I was in San Francisco, I had the great pleasure of meeting Diane and Gil, a Bay-area couple who have just created a start-up called Share Some Style. I have been helping them out with some research, ideas, graphics and a medley of other things, one of which was a small event to celebrate the very beginning - the beta start of the company.

I hope that last photo was a clear hint of the theme of the party. Toast the food and the action! At once!

Diane, Ada (an equally creative, great friend who let me stay with her my whole month and a half in CA! Clearly, she is a saint) and I hashed out the idea for the party just about 5 days before it happened. Ada and I did the food. I have realized that I really love the menu planning part of planning an event. It is such a functional and decorative way to blend multiple elements together. Plus, when you do the food, you really have the reigns of the party in your hands. Food is such an enormously important part of the event!

We also made toast-related items like sandwiches and bruschetta. I think I have perfected my cucumber sandwich. That and the meatball (not made for this one, but many others!) have proven to be my top two, go-to party foods of the year.

I should also point out that craft paper was the other theme of the event. During our planning session, Diane stressed that Share Some Style was really about the fun of personal style - not fashion - and really wanted to make sure everything stayed approachable and casual. Craft paper was really the perfect solution because it was super functional (instant table cloths, signage, name tags...), affordable and also looks great with marker sketches!

I would also like to take a moment to mention that the inspiration for the toast party came from a dorm room socializing event I accidentally slept through on my first night in New Zealand ( I studied abroad for a semester in college.)  Jet lag got the better of me, but I heard such great reviews about the toast party that the idea stuck with me.  (They did it a little differently, more of a toast potluck, which is also a great idea which I plan to use in the future.)

 

Like the tent over the table? Ada made it and it's awesome. I slept in one just like it while visiting CA (I took some nice night shots which will make it up here soon) - it's amazing the magic that  6 or so bamboo rods and some curtains from Ikea can create?!

recently

A good friend came to visit recently and the weekend ended in an excursion on the family boat, a frigid overnight at the cabin and a bit of time spent in the studio, looking at my recent work. This said friend is also an amazing photographer and was kind enough to snap a few shots of some of my letterpress work from the last couple months. Thanks Angel!

simply

Learning to make fresh bread is on my bucket list of things to do this year. That bucket list is fairly long and mostly includes travel locations and food. My Mom is excellent at simple, but always amazing, whole wheat loaves. She made two tonight and definitely didn't let us down. Pulled pork is also on my bucket list and I am happy to report that the crock pot has been going all day! Maybe bread is next?

cimicifuga

Definetly one of my favorite flowers because of its dark stem and leaves and because of the intricacy of the blossoms. I actually prefer it when it has buds rather than blossoms, but in my morning (or mid-day, if you are one of those who goes by clocks and numbers, rather than relativity to the time you got out of bed...) romb through the gardens. 
This plant is new to us this year, one of the beauties I was able to extract out of Grandma's gardens before the house went up for sale. This and a really amazing, dark fern are my two treasures from her. 

Mark & Michael

Happy 5 Year Anniversary to Mark & Michael! This weekend Found & Created helped create a little backyard soiree in their honor featuring blue stripes, silver edged glasses, wooden platters and bow-ties. The whole thing was wonderfully photographed by Robyn Blasi, so their will be much more to come including more details, happy smiles and the custom letterpress invite we created for the event.

Pretty in Pink

I submitted a couple bouquets into the RI Dahlia Show last weekend and this beauty won a blue ribbon and the best of category for all arrangements! I was over the moon excited because this was the first time I ever submitted an arrangement to a juried contest. My mom also entered the show and won a blue ribbon for her Kenora Amethyst dahlia (the dark purple ball in the top photo.) 

There were about 8 categories for bouquet entries, this one was called Pretty in Pink. It required that the arrangement had to feature 3 different dahlias forms and be in the pink family. We stocked up on purple dahlias last year for Katie & Darren's wedding, along with purple basil and the dark purple potato vine, most of this bouquet was made up of the items we grew especially for their event. Because all of the arrangement categories were themed around drinks/cocktails I thought the splash of fruit would be a fun touch (and work because raspberries are pink!) The pink cosmos made this whole pink and purple concoction work and lean towards the pink category.