I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say its a safe bet that 78% of women enjoy fresh flowers in their homes. I personally do. In fact, I really enjoy buying a HUGE bunch of different flowers (Fresh Market is the place for this!!) and going in my mom's yard and gathering all kinds of greenery and making a ridiculous arrangement.

I remember when I was a freshman in college, my parents had the daunting task of decorating their new home, which happened to be twice as big as the one we had lived in for 15 years. Not to mention the fact that we had NO furniture because it was all on backorder, our home looked like a shell.

The next Christmas, the house looked a lot more lived in, and mom decided that year that she would go all out and make it a Christmas Wonderland. She hired an independent florist (Jennifer Riley) and told her to just go to town with decorating. Well, if any of you have ever seen Jennifer's work, you will know how INCREDIBLE she is!! I came home from finals to a house that literally looked like I stepped into a Traditional Home photo shoot. It was TDF!!! So, every year since then, Mom hires Jennifer to come back and decorate. She uses the same things, but adds a twist here and there and its just pure magical. I'm excited to see it this year. The 'rents had the Supper Club Christmas party there last Saturday, so the house is shining in all its Christmas glory right now.

I digress. ANYWAY!! When Jennifer first came to the house 6 years ago, she and I started talking about how she got her start. Apparantly, she worked for a florist in town and he saw major potential in her so he sent her over to Amsterdam to this most incredible Flower Market/Auction site where she learned everything one could ever dream about flowers. I think if I were to go there, I'ld drop dead of a heartattack. Its been my dream to follow in her footsteps, but I don't think the career path I'm on right now is really heading in that direction. So, instead, I can just make little pretty arrangements for myself and my mom.

I was going through my files of pictures and came across these little arrangements. Sometimes the simplest ones are the best {**notice my header up there:) }. You will find, however, a wild card that I found the other day on one of my favorite blogs. She usually gets it right, but this time she was way off!!

ENJOY!!
This makes me think of my friend Sara. She has a knack for collecting odds and ends like these and using them in ways most people wouldn't think. Although she probably would place herbs and greenery in here instead of flowers, I still think of her!

And if this doesn't make you just want to fast forward to spring, I really don't know what will.

Here we go with the big NO MAM!!! arrangement. Here's my rant for the day. I HATE carnations. I cannot say this enough. I don't care how tightly you cluster them together and place silver sticks in there with them, they are still the cheap tacky funeral flowers. I despise them. Always have. Always will. I know our economy is pretty much shot right now and we're all having to learn to live on tighter budgets, but seriously. I'ld rather have no flowers than these!!

I remember when Ryan and I first started dating, I went to visit him for a weekend. He showed up to my hotel room to pick me up for dinner with a bouquet of carnations behind his back. He was beyond proud of the fact that he had taken the extra step and bought flowers. I had to fight it with EVERY inch in my body to pretend as though I liked them. Later my sister told him to NEVER show up with carnations again. Ladies, he never showed up with flowers ever again. But that's ok, because I never had to pretend to like the funeral flowers ever again!!