Monthly Archives: August 2010

by stevrt

Impressive Flower Blanket From Rittners Floral School Grad Ellen O’Brien of MV Florist

Rittners Floral School graduate Ellen O’Brien of MV Florist in Martha’s Vineyard pulled off an impressive technical feat, creating a lovely blanket of sunflowers to honor her customer actress Patricia Neal who recently passed on.

Blankets are not an every day kind of floral design. They were more commonly stylized in Grandpa Rittner’s Day, and require an extraordinary amount of labor and materials. When you get an order for one of these, it is really something very unique and very special.

Ellen told us that this blanket required 300 sunflowers and a total of 20 hours worth of labor. (four women working for five hours.)

One rather interesting aspect of this design is that it was based on minnow net which is pretty neat considering the Martha’s Vineyard Island location.

What a lovely floral design! Congratulations to you Ellen on such an impressive job. And thank you for sharing with us.

by stevrt

The Natural Beauty of Floral Media

I am often asked what the director of Rittners Floral School does when not teaching floral designing. Well one thing that I love to do is photography. Recently, I have really gotten into macro photography, taking close up photographs of individual flowers (as you can see from some of our various blog entries).

This is alstroemeria, one of my favorite flowers, and one that we love to use here at Rittners Floral School in Boston. This remarkable flower is available in a wide range of colors. We get them in pinks, violets, whites, yellows, oranges and often in bicolors. It is found throughout the year. There are usually a number of flowers on a stem making it a great value. The flower can be used for a huge number of design assignments ranging from vase arrangements to bridal bouquets to even flowers to wear.

Best of all alstroemeria is a very hearty flower. A bud vase design made on Monday with a tight very fresh alstroemeria will gradually open up and look just as incredible towards the end of the week.

It is easy to take things for granted in any field. Many floral designers take for granted the media that they use every day. I do not. I feel passionate about what I do and the materials that we use. I consider myself especially blessed. I love flowers, and I love their design. I love teaching people skills that will make other folks happy. The natural beauty of floral media is an every day part of what floral artists are all about. Flowers rock!