Last month I had the opportunity to go to New Orleans to teach a 2 day workshop, hosted by Diane Mouton with Fat Cat Flowers. The day before the workshop we went to the flower market and visited several plant shops and got back to the studio with a plethora of fabulous flowers, textures and houseplants. We also had the opportunity to go forage fabulous pieces of woods.

8 very enthusiastic and talented designers attended the workshop. On the second afternoon photographers Marianne and Steve Sabrier with The Red M Studio  took pictures of everyone’s designs. Thank you Allie and Babs for modeling all the fabulous botanical headpieces and jewelry! And thank you Holly  Grace Manders for the beautiful hair and make-up for the models!

As always a huge thank you to Oasis for sponsoring the workshop!

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 It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that for quite a while I have been somewhat obsessed with botanical dresses. Never mind that I do not wear dresses – I only love to create the botanical kind!  I’ve marveled at so many pictures on social media over the years and have often fantasized to design several dresses for a runway show.

As you can imagine they are very time consuming and expensive projects – however, it has been fun to experiment with ideas and create some miniature versions. This week I designed the first ‘woodland dress’, using some textured birch bark that I had brought back from Grovfor in Wisconsin last summer. The next step will be to make one for a model later this spring.

I have been fortunate to be hired on a few occasions to make botanical dresses:

The first one was for a window display during the holidays here in Portland at a bridal gown shop Divine Designs. A couple of years ago Milieu Magazine  in Houston dreamed up a magnificent dress for the cover of the magazine. A few months later I designed a dress for the grand opening of the most exclusive in women’s luxury ready-to-wear store Neapoliotan Collection in Chicago.

Last November I taught the mechanics on how to make a dress to students at Cohim in Beijing. The results were stunning and after posting images on social media, many designers expressed interest to take such a class. I am offering 2 workshops, one in Portland next month and one in San Francisco in March.

If you are interested to learn the mechanics for this exciting trend,  check out my upcoming workshops schedule  or contact me for private instruction and editorial design.

Thank you Gwen Severson for the fabulous pictures!

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Last spring I was contacted by Lauren Kimble, editor in chief of Fil Magazine. She was interested in documenting one of the workshops in the studio. Lauren attended a 3 day wedding workshop last June;  the article that she produced for last month’s edition is rich with photos and commentaries.

‘Fil Magazine is the 1st Vegan Event Planning Magazine. It redefines event planning by inspiring others to tread lightly.’   Lauren publishes her beautiful magazine twice a year on line  but you can also buy a hard copy.

A few days ago I received some of the favorite photos that she had taken; take a look!

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Each month I’ll share a current trend I’m seeing in floral design, or a new passion I have with materials and pieces that inspire me.

Botanical jewelry is very hot right now and inquiries for my work in this have grown. It was 5 years ago that I started to make botanical jewelry and all because a student asked to see the mechanics on how to make a ring. Talk about being put on the spot! I figured it out and the rest is history.

Curiosity drove me to start designing earrings, necklaces and bracelets too. As I love details so much I like to piece together deconstructed flowers, tillandsias, succulents and textures along with sedums, tendrils and berries. Depending on the materials that are used, this jewelry will last 1 day up to several weeks.

If you are interested in this exciting floral trend, check out my upcoming workshops schedule, my online jewelry courses or contact me for private instruction and editorial design.

Photo credit: Ted Mishima

Last month I went to Beijing for the 5th time to teach a 6 day woodland/botanical couture workshop, hosted by Cohim.

As always the students were eager to learn new mechanics and techniques and they splendidly interpreted them in their designs. They experienced how curiosity is a driving force to look at flowers through different eyes or to look at pieces of wood or bark as unique vessels. Deconstructing flowers and textures opens up so many options to design with unusual elements, especially when making jewelry.

Students made splendid woodland centerpieces, bouquets and wreaths and learned a foolproof system to decorate shoes. They learned how to create the basis for any shape of purses, jewelry, headpieces and flexible fabric and embellished them with flowers and textures.

On the last day, they worked in teams to make the dress form for a mannequin and collaborate on the design and application of leaves, flowers and textures.

I wanted to extend my gratitude to assistants Jo and Kevin and my translator Tina.

Photos are taken by photographer Kurt at Cohim and myself.

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When I taught a workshop at Cohim in China last month, the students made botanical dresses on the last day. A short video of their beautiful dresses posted on social media was very well received. Students have been requesting this class and I am excited to be able to offer it to you!

I will teach a 2 day botanical couture workshop at Brannan Street at the flower market in San Francisco on March 3-4 and one here in Portland on February 20-21 at studio Tendue. My studio is too small to accommodate students and mannequins, so I decided to teach at the brand new studio Tendue, which is located 5 minutes from my studio.

For more information about the workshops, please click here

Whether you would like to make a floral garment for a show-stopping window display, to participate in a competition or even to wear for a special occasion, the techniques you will learn can be adapted and applied to a myriad of ideas. As this is a very time consuming project, students will work in pairs to make the dress form for a mannequin and collaborate on the design and application of leaves, flowers and textures.

All the beautiful designs will be documented by a professional photographer

Here is an example of a dress that I made last week. I created the base of the dress on a mannequin and decorated it with silverleaf, rosepetals, lilies and orchids, foliage of pepperonia, rex begonias and cyclamen, succulents, pieris and berries. There are endless possibilities for the styles of dresses and how to decorate them.

Many thanks to photographer Ted Mishima and model Raven Surratt

If anyone is interested in hosting this workshop in another city, let me know!

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Last week local photographer Stephanie Jarstad contacted me, asking if I would like to collaborate on a shoot. Recently her 8 month old husky had been diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease. She and her husband were heartbroken as they would have to put Kolohe down soon. She wanted to do one last photo shoot with him, surrounded by flowers. We decided to use treasures from the forest floor, as he used to love to run around in nature – as all puppies do.

I realized how emotional this collaboration would be, as we had lost our sweet Tanner last summer. 

In the studio I made different sections with beautiful pieces of bark and wooden discs and embellished them with evergreens, moss and lichens and many forest floor treasures and assembled all the pieces in their living room in a horse-shoe shaped woodland-scape; the center was a soft bed of small pieces of evergreens and  some rosepetals.

Kohole slept peacefully during the photo shoot and Stephanie captured so many peaceful images of him. You can see many more pictures and Kohole’s story on her blog post: ‘Copy of the Letter to Our Puppy in Heaven’ http://www.stephaniejarstad.com/blog/

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A plethora of textures and some early spring flowers framed by a mixture of dogwood, magnolia and lichen covered branches makes for a striking centerpiece or a distinctive frame as a back drop for a photo shoot.

To make this detailed woodland design I used hellebores, double tulips, bells of Ireland, succulents, tillandsias, lichens, mushrooms, berzillia, kale, parsley, ferns, blackberries, seedpods of nigella and eucalyptus, buds of ranunculus, club moss, calix of carnations ,…

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I must say that recently I have been a bit obsessed to work with bark. @Grovfor in Wisconsin has been supplying me with a fabulous selection.

The intent was to make a mask – but during the photo shoot we realized that the piece also could be used as a headpiece and even a shield.

And the necklace could be re-purposed as a small headpiece. We had a blast during it all!

photos: Ted Mishimahttp://www.mishimaphotography.com/

model: Ella Con Tessla

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Here is the sequel to the first part of the photo shoot  that was posted a few days ago.

Photos: Gwendolyn Severson (@botanicallyinspires) and Alba Betancourt

Model: Nicholas Lemere (@nicholaslemere)

Space: Tendue

Bracelets, rings and earrings designed by Gwendolyn Severson

Mask/headpieces and necklaces designed by Françoise Weeks

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