Beautiful cream and brown ceramic pitcher featuring spring flowers


Pink hyacinth in a vintage creamer


White hydrangea in a 1960's ceramic vase


1960's teal ceramic handled urn vase - my favorite!

I love this time of year for making flower arrangements. Heaps of crazy, curly jasmine scents the air of my shop. This, mixed with bundles of wonderful sweet pea in every imaginable color are stuffed into mugs, vases and containers of all kinds makes me happy. I believe in having fresh cut flowers in just about every room in your home. It lifts your spirits, brightens your space and brings the nature indoors. It is so easy to step outside and gather just about any blooming thing and create a great arrangement. I am constantly foraging in our gardens for new things. Last week I began incorporating not yet mature snap pea vines into my decor and the tiny little bean pods hanging from fluffy clouds of hydrangea looked so wild and elegant.

I recently did a centerpiece in a vintage silver bowl that incorporated many different spring flowers as well as a wonderful potted purple oxalis. I used jasmine, dubium, fig branches, white lilies, bright blue delphinium and a few unexpected desert flowers. I wanted to create something that hadn't been seen before and I hope that the guests at the party it was for took the time to examine all of the amazing colors, textures and scents! My client was over the moon and that, of course, is what it's all about for me.







Have a wonderful week!
Melisa

Valentine's Day was lovely here at Apartment 46. While we did a lot of beautiful bouquets, we were also happily surprised to see so many people get creative with their gift-giving! I feel the same way most people do about the "Enforced Day of Love" (why is there just one prescribed day?), but if you're going to participate, then taking a little extra time to do something out of the ordinary makes it much more worthwhile for everyone involved.

We had a gentleman choose three items for the woman he loves because each had symbolic significance in their relationship. Miranda and I had the "AWWWW!" feeling for an hour after he left. We had a man and his daughter choose a few special things that reminded them of their special lady. It was completely sweet. We never ever get tired of being a source of inspiration for people and we are proud to be a part of a loving exchange. Our very good friend (and amazing chef) Axel challenged us to create a small bouquet that could be "given" by the stuffed bear she had bought her partner. We thought it was such a cute idea!



Now that our mandatory day of love is over, it's a perfect time to let the people you care for know exactly how you feel. Gestures of affection don't have to be expensive. In fact, a handwritten love note tucked inside a beautiful box says a lot more about your heart than a bank-breaking floral arrangement. One of the most romantic things I have ever received from a boy was a poorly drawn picture of a bouquet that said, "Flowers for you because I can't afford them right now." I have saved that scrap of paper for 20 years. It still makes me smile.

I was reading Essentially French, a gorgeous book about French style and I saw a picture of a haphazard bunch of field flowers in a bottle. The caption said it was a "Lover's bouquet" and I was captivated. Gathering a handful of meadow flowers and wild clover and wrapping it with a simple bit of ribbon or twine is crazy-romantic to me. I'm pretty much putty in your hands if you pick me a garden rose. My clients often come by with bits from their gardens and I am always so touched. There is something way more magical to me about having that spontaneous thought, "Oh! I should pick so and so some flowers." Thus, I was inspired to create a few lover's bouquets of my own using wildflowers and some amazing wild greens gathered from Lara and Ian McCullough's soon to be landscaped garden (more on that makeover to come!)



I waded through the strange things that have taken over my vegetable beds to find interesting bits for my small vintage bottles:



Even the tiniest containers can hold a lot of love. I use sterling silver antique salt shakers for vases and sprinkle them around the house:



The next time you step outside, look around to see what sort of plants and flowers you have at your disposal. It doesn't need to be fancy to be beautiful. Adding a fresh-picked bunch of garden greens can warm up a room in a huge way. I'd love to see (and post!) photos of what you come up with.

All my best,
Melisa

This past Christmas was a great one for us and I want to thank everyone who stopped by to share in the holiday festivities. Miranda and I were so proud that gifts chosen from our little shop made it onto airplanes, as surprises in stockings, as rewards for a job well done...I was always excited to see husbands, wives, and boyfriends popping in to ask what their women had mentioned they loved. I keep a long tally running in my head of the various treasures my customers lust after!

One of our favorite friends, Tami, had asked whether I could design a "bottle corsage" to decorate a bottle of wine she and her boyfriend were giving as a gift. She wanted to be able to remove it and move it on to other newly opened bottles as the night progressed. I had never made a wine bottle decoration before so I gave it my best shot! Not only was Tami pleased with the result, the receiver of the gift wanted to come buy more!





Nothing humbles me more than when something I've created makes other people happy. It's just such a blessing to me. So now, I suppose Apartment 46 makes bottle corsages to make giving wine that much more special! Thanks Tami!

Happy New Year to you and yours!
Melisa

I was incredibly honored to be asked to design flowers for Julie and Andy Garlikov's daughter's naming ceremony. Though I am not well-versed on important Jewish traditions, I knew that it was an intimate day where family and friends would come together to celebrate their child. I was lucky enough to be given creative freedom on what to put together so I settled on vintage milk glass containers with raucous but feminine wildflowers. For the dining table, I did a spread of Persimmon branches with roses and a tiny butterfly, which, unbeknown to me, was a theme featured on the cupcakes! Julie's talented husband took these photos so that I might share the bouquets with my readers. Thanks so much Andy!

Click Read More to see more.

All the best,
Melisa





» Read More

I found this incredible vintage handmade Japanese vase at an estate sale and have been wondering what would look best with its muted colors. I was so excited to get the deep red button Dahlias at the Flower Mart this past week and thought it would be so cheerful mixed with pink ranunculus, clover and orange baby roses. I can't wait to experiment with new looks!

Enjoy,
M

You may already know that I do floral arrangements and garden design, but you may not know that a lot of the flowers at the shop come from my organic garden. I still make a weekly trek to the Flower Mart, but only to buy staples and comb the buckets for strange and uncommon blooms.

As my own garden grows and matures I'm finding fresh new ways to use what it offers me. The massive ivy growing on my fence (which I hate), is in full bloom. I've started to use its flowers - which look like pods from outer space - with roses and daisies. It looks stunning! I've fallen in love with the giant clover I previously thought was a weed, and I've found new ways to use the technicolor leaves of my Heucheras.

Being in the garden is otherwordly. This morning, I was cutting back my Salvia and a silk worm crawled onto my hand. It was so tiny but super animated! In the background, a could hear a neighbor's stereo playing opera and as if in a movie, the little worm stood straight up and started weaving back and forth as if it were singing. It was hilarious and too well timed to be an accident. :) Spending time in the garden allows me to decompress, think pure thoughts, and find creative ways to add to the arrangements I design.

I hope you enjoy them receiving them as much as I enjoy making them!

Melisa





» Read More

Last week I got an email from a woman in San Luis Obispo asking if I could do some flowers for her boyfriend, who lives nearby, "just because". When I asked how she had heard of me she mentioned that she had been in my shop when she was in the area and remembered me. How cool is that? I was happy to be a part of surprising him and hoped to meet her request of designing a tall, elegant, but not feminine arrangement. Happily, I heard back that he loved the flowers (he took photos!) and they looked great on his dining room table. Although I do not typically do deliveries outside of our immediate neighborhood - someone has to be at the shop - I will do so for special requests and out of town clients.

If you are considering doing something a little special for someone - whether it be for Mother's Day, Easter, or your own "Just Because" - I'd love to be a part of that plan.

All my best,
Melisa



» Read More

The past couple of weeks have been really rewarding and exciting for me as a floral designer. I've had the opportunity to finish a number of very different floral arrangements - from dramatic to laid back summer dinner party - and with each new arrangement comes a new opportunity to learn and grow. Nature provides endless colors and textures to draw from and experiment with and I'm finding that I have long overlooked some of the coolest and most fascinating options available to me right in my own organic garden.

Never a big fan of using greens, I tend to substitute green flowers or berries but recently I've begun a love affair with scented Geranium. Their fragile, sweet and spicy, beautifully banded leaves provided an excellent backdrop for creamy tulips in a recent "Just Because" bouquet. In an elegant "Thank You" bouquet, I incorporated greens in the form of wild Salvia with its crazy, fun, hot pink blooms. Always, I've been a fan of long, flowy vines as they're playful, elegant and very long-lasting.

I'm on a mission to find to find greens that I can love for their unique look and feel and the overall appeal and imagination they help provide.

I'll keep you posted!

Melisa



» Read More

I am definitely not a traditional florist. In fact, I don’t consider myself a florist at all. I consider my shop a design lab. Ordering flowers from me might seem like a visit to a circus psychic (I ask a lot of questions about the receiver), but I strive to design unique and amazing arrangements that stand out from the regular fare. Twice a week I visit the San Francisco Flower Mart in the wee hours of the morning (before 7am to be exact) to see what interesting things the vendors might be selling. I rarely buy greens, as I think they are an excuse for using less flowers, and I am usually on the prowl for the darkest, sweetest, and most bizarre flowers I can find.

There are several not so hard to find flowers that I really love, and I try to have them on hand when the weather allows. I like Parrot Tulips a lot because they are so striking by themselves in a plain white ceramic vase, but I can't have them here unless they're special order because the warm temperature forces them open a lot sooner than I’d like.

I am also a big fan of Wild Phlox because it fills out a bouquet so nicely. It's always the last bunch of flowers I prepare as the sap is so noxious and sticky that I end up gluing everything together (hair to my face, fingers to my shears, etc.) and it's an exercise in frustration for me. I don't wear gloves because I am a very into touch and I feel disconnected from what I am doing if I have them on. Thus, my hands look like they belong to an 80 year old mechanic.

Anyway, I don’t own a floral cooler in the shop so I stick with blooms that have a longer life and are tolerant to warmth. This is probably good for my clients because most people don't live in floral coolers and once a bouquet is out of the florist's and in your home, it may be finished much sooner than necessary.

I've had some really great finds in the past couple of weeks. I’ve been lucky enough to have gorgeous purple/black Calla Lilies, my very favorite Chocolate Cosmos (they really do smell like cocoa!) and very deep purple Scabiosa. Mixing the dark flowers and putting them into a tarnished silver vase makes an incredibly elegant arrangement.

This week I was fanatic for green flowers. I picked up some very delicate Spider Mums, green roses, tiny little Button Mums and some wonderfully weird long stemmed Lotus Pods. It looks a bit like Alice in Wonderland's garden in here at the moment.

As part of my ongoing experimentation I decided to mix some green roses with some shocking blue Delphinium and mix in some Eucalyptus branches I had bought. The seeds of the branches remind me of mini Buddha hands so I thought it was sweet. While it’s definitely not a traditional combo, I really like the contrast of color and texture.

The bottom line is that if you love it, then it works. I strongly encourage experimentation when making bouquets. Floral arrangements can be so boring and formulaic and there’s no reason not to mix wildflowers with fig branches or roses with Pomegranates if that’s what you fancy. If ever you want to play with color and texture, drop on by and let’s mix and match in any one of my not so basic containers. I’m happy to help you get inspired!