Last March Taylor Fisher, a designer in Pennsylvania inquired if I would offer a botanical couture workshop in the studio. I asked her what she wanted to learn and the answer was: botanical headpieces and wearables, including botanical dresses.

What a great group we had! Kathy and Clare joined us from Louisiana, Deb flew up from California, Kelley drove down from Washington and Sonia had a very short commute from her home in Portland.

As the dresses are so time consuming to make, they teamed up and came up with these amazing gowns!

And take a close look at the fantastic headpieces!

Last September photographer Abigayle Tarsches gathered a fabulous group of creatives for a photo shoot at Beast Daylight Studio. What a great experience this was! Thank you Artells Magazine for featuring the story!

Many thanks to everyone who was involved!

Wardrobe stylist: Geneva Mellison

MUAH: Katherine Sealy with Event Cosmetics

Models: Hayle Rose and Medina Gedi

Photo Assistant: Jayme Fay

Last summer my friend Theresa found 3 large wooden window frames that had been discarded. She brought them to my studio saying that I probably would figure out what to do with them. It took a while, but had a great time designing these simple structures!

For this one, I sawed the top off and secured it to one side to avoid symmetry. A copper grid was secured to support the the foxgloves. I covered the sides with moss, so the bamboo could be glued on more easily. A beautiful piece of wood that I had stored for a very long time was perfect for the base. I cut some windy branches from my wisteria. The love-in-a-puff, dehydrated mushrooms, green cherry tomatoes, snake grass and ferns added some whimsy.

Thank you Theresa for the fabulous pictures and Feli for modeling at the crack of dawn!

Teaching at a flower farm is the best experience! Many thanks to Tom Knecht and Sarah Daken who hosted a 2 day woodland/botanical workshop at their fabulous flower farm Grateful Gardeners in Poolesville, MD late September. All the flowers and textures were harvested on the farm and adjacent woods. The attendees also got a great tour of the flower farm, including the large aquaponics greenhouse. A great experience was had by all!

Many thanks to Tom for the pictures.

Late August Rebecca Raymond hosted a woodland/botanical couture workshop in her lovely garden on Vashon Island, a magical small island, west of Seattle.. The weather was magnificent and it was such a treat to teach outside and enjoying gorgeous views all day long. We both taught a couple of classes in this idyllic setting.

Delicious meals were served both days and were prepared by Tracy Pegg.

Rebecca had gathered a lot of driftwood at a nearby beach, which we used to teach a woodland centerpiece class as well as a framed woodland class. Rebecca also taught how to make kokedamas and students also learned how to make botanical jewelry.

Many thanks to Rebecca and Gina Thresher for taking the pictures!

A couple of months ago we did a photo shoot at sunrise at Fernhill Park in N Portland. The light was exquisite! Many thanks to Theresa Bear for the magnificent photography and Feli Songolo for agreeing to this very early shoot – it was a real pleasure working with you!

Botanical headpiece with curly bark, orchids, allium, asclepia, elderberries, wood shavings, acorns, succulents, buds of sunflowers, green cherry tomatoes, blackberries, hops, spider plant, fungi, moss, lichen, tendrils of passion vine, seedpods of queen Anne’s lace, nicandra,..

Decorating wine bottles is a lot of fun! As always, there are many different ways to go about it. On November 17th, I will teach a class on how to decorate them, focusing on woodland style. A fun advantage of doing it this way, is that you can decorate them many days in advance, and if you want to add a few flowers, you can do that the day of the party. Orchids are always a good choice, as they hold up well out of water for 2-3 days at room temperature. I used empty bottles to make the samples:-)

It is always fun to learn new mechanics! Last weekend I taught a workshop on Vashon Island,WA – hosted by Rebecca Raymond in her lovely garden. She also taught a couple of classes and I learned about bongo ties, which is a great alternative to zipties.

I used bongo ties to create the structure with several pieces of driftwood for this centerpiece. Then decorated it with a variety of textures and a few stems of fuchsia (in concealed water tubes).

For this jacket, I re-purposed parts of a headpiece that I made last fall ( see blog post Botanical Headpieces with a Twist). The aluminum mesh was first covered with “press ‘n seal”, then with small pieces of paper thin birch bark. Curly wood shavings were super imposed and the jacket was simply decorated with a few ferns, muscari, seedpods and dehydrated mushrooms.

Many thanks to Theresa Bear for the magical photography and Chloe Williams for modeling so graciously.

Thank you Katherine Sealy with Event Cosmetics for the perfect make up and Jen Rich for styling the shoot that took place at Beast Daylight Studio.

This was a first! I only used 1 type of botanical material: chocolate ti leaves.

They were secured to a long piece of chicken wire, which was attached to a belt. Each leaf was folded in half and both ends were glued together. The belt was covered with a few leaves also.

Photos: Theresa Bear

Model: Makena Rich

MUAH: Event Cosmetics

Styling: Jen Rich

Venue: Beast Daylight Studio