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April 7, 2011

Painting Flowers

This past weekend I learned something very interesting and thought I'd share. After all, who knows when random bits of informationn will come in handy for someone else!


My sister's colors for her wedding were white and a dark raspberry pink. Its a very pretty color.


She has always loved tulips.
She had pictured in her mind a few raspberry pink tulips in vases on the tables at the reception. It looked really pretty.


The park where the wedding was held wouldn't let us throw rice or birdseed or much of anything else. Our of desperation we even asked if we could throw Rice Krispies cereal and the answer was no, because they didn't want to attract more ducks and geese than were already there. Meagan wasn't big on the "blowing bubbles" trend, and with that we were out of ideas. We had to dig deep into the imagination for a solution, but one finally presented itself, and when it came time for the bride and groom to depart, we showered them with raspberry pink carnation petals. It was really pretty.
I was busy throwing petals so left it to the real photographer to get a picture of the effect it created.
The only other flowers in Meagan's wedding plans were her bridal bouquets. She wanted a tight and full cluster of hydrangea blossoms, white for her attendants, and raspberry pink for her and Lily.


Hydrangeas do actually come in a deep pink color. They are called Red Hydrangea's according to Mom. But according to the florist they were using, they are not available at this time of year. He had another suggestion and said they'd order in what he was thinking of, and if they weren't pink enough, we would decide what to do from there.


So on Saturday morning, Mom, Meagan, and I headed out to find the obscure little florist wholesale shop tucked into a side street on the west side of Nashville. It was really neat and I was so angry with myself as we were leaving because I realized I never thought to take any pictures for the blog, or for Meagan's memories either! Oh well!


What the florist had obtained was beautiful, but no where NEAR raspberry pink. They were hydrangea blossoms in varied shades of pink and green. We thought they were lovely, but not what we were looking for at all.
But this particular florist, who had been a marvel to work with, helping Mom over the phone and swapping emails with her dozens of times, came through and saved the day.


We were skeptical of his solution at first, but he assured us it was easily done, would look great, and would solve our issue.
As it turns out, they make a special spray paint just for flowers! I've never heard of such a thing! And I guess you can get it in all sorts of colors! He demonstrated for us on an extra blossom, packed our flowers in the car for us and waved goodbye as we drove away.


Back at Meagan's house, we unloaded our flowers and carried them into the garage, as it was already getting windy, a precursor of the gusts to come the next day.


The garage got pretty fumigated with paint fumes, but it was better than fighting the wind with the delicate blooms. We were a little nervous about the prospect of the flowers turning out OK, but there was nothing to do but get started and see what happened. We let Meagan do the honors on the first one.
And Lily, of course, had to get in on the action! Who couldn't resist the opportunity to paint flowers!
After that we left them to dry. We didn't want to go overboard until we knew what they were going to look like.
I'm still amazed! Who would have thought you can spray paint flowers to get your desired color? It worked like a charm, and on the big day, Meagan and Lily had beautiful bouquets of raspberry pink hydrangea blossoms that looked completly natural.
Beautiful flowers made especially for beautiful girls to carry on a beautiful day!

6 comments:

Muffy's Marks said...

what a wonderful idea. I am glad everything turned out perfect!!

Valerie said...

Fabulous post and very good to know. Upon visiting witih Marilyn, I learned that coloring flowers by spray painting is quite common (she knew this b/c of Eric's work in the florist industry). Anyway, love the post and photos. You are awesome.

Michaele said...

This is why I love blogging so much. There is so much to learn. I had no idea there was flower paint - but it makes perfect sense. Very cool idea! I hope the park did not find any objection to flower petals. Might attract more weddings or something. lol

Meagan said...

Yay! I was so excited that my flowers were EXACTLY what I wanted! Plust we had SO MUCH FUN getting them and painting them! :-)

Anonymous said...

They are beautiful. You can't tell they were painted in the pictures. ;)

Unknown said...

Wow really it is a great idea to color flowers and they looks awesome . Thanks for sharing .