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Archives for December 2013

Suggest an Article: Car Wrapping

HollyHock2Not too long ago, we asked our member florists to submit any ideas they had to use in future blog posts. We intentionally didn’t specify what kind of ideas we were looking for, and as a result, we received suggestions encompassing all aspects of the business. This will be the first in a series of articles wherein I take those tips and present them to you!

Car Wrapping Tastefully

As a business owner, effective and affordable advertising can be difficult to find. For Heather Aleksonis, the owner of HollyHock Flowers in Weare, New Hampshire, one solution came in the form of car wrapping. The process involved taking her vehicle to a local professional and having it covered in stickers advertising her business. This effectively turned her car into a moving billboard.

Heather says that it’s the best thing she’s done as far as advertising:HollyHock Stickers

“Forget the newspapers. You can do your car for the price of 2 ads in the newspaper. When your customers see your car all the time, they think you are busy. And then they want to do business with you also.”

Looking at her beautifully decorated ride, I can see why it works! That looks awesome Heather!

Come back soon for even more Suggest an Article tips! And if you missed the first opportunity to suggest an article, leave some ideas in the comments below. You never know, you might find your idea in the next Suggest an Article!

Friday Florist Recap 12/21 – 12/27: A Seasonal Soiree

This week we have a smorgasbord of gorgeous floral designs and arrangements for your viewing pleasure. From some seasonally aware wedding bouquets to some truly magnificent holiday designs, you’re sure to be impressed and possibly inspired! Enjoy this week’s best submissions and come back next week for another Friday Florist Recap!

Special Occasion Flowers

Amazing brides maids bouquets from Monday Morning Flower and Balloon Co. in Princeton, NJ

Amazing brides maids bouquets from Monday Morning Flower and Balloon Co. in Princeton, NJ

A Christmas wedding bouquet from Blooms on Buckley in Aurora, CO

A Christmas wedding bouquet from Blooms on Buckley, LLC in Aurora, CO [Read more…]

Happy New Year … with Flowers!

It’s almost time to ring in the new year!

Flowers and the New Year

With New Year’s Day fast approaching, you’re probably thinking about how you can structure things to start the year off in the best possible way. You’re picking out your resolution, deciding on the traditional menu items you want to prepare and getting everything ready for the party you’re throwing for loved ones. Make sure that in all the preparations you don’t forget a very important component to starting the new year off right. I’m talking about flowers of course!

Brilliant BlueCrimson Perfection Floral Arrangement

Symbolizing Love and Happiness

Everything you do on New Year’s Day has meaning and often stands as a symbol for something larger than itself. Do you eat black-eyed peas and collard greens to ensure wealth and prosperity throughout the year? Maybe you eat pork and cabbage? Each of these traditional foods is consumed to symbolize blessing for the coming year. Shouldn’t flowers be part of your traditional celebration?

Flowers symbolize happiness and love, joy and friendship, embodying everything you want for your loved ones in the upcoming year. This New Year’s Day, make sure you make flowers part of your celebration!

10 Fun and Touching Christmas Card Messages

Christmas flowers are the BEST flowers! Who wouldn’t love to receive a gorgeous bouquet from a loved one? What host/hostess wouldn’t want to be given a beautiful centerpiece or handcrafted wreath? The question isn’t whether or not to give flowers this holiday season, but rather what you should put on that blank card when you do?

We’re here to help!  Just look below for 10 fun and/or touching Christmas card messages.

Bright Winter Sky Seasonal Style Starry-Eyed Joy

Christmas Card Messages

1. Hold this over your head, and we can pretend it’s mistletoe!

2. Christmas blessings to you and yours this holiday season.

3. Here’s a gift guaranteed to fit, and it won’t just hang in your closet like that sweater you got from Aunt Myrtle.

4. For my personal Christmas miracle.

5. How about we get a head start on making next year’s Naughty List?

6. Wishing you all the best this Christmas Day.

7. Hoping your day is filled with love and laughter.

8. Here’s a heaping helping of Holiday Cheer.

9. Thank you for all you do. Merry Christmas!

10. Sending you love and joy this holiday season.

Christmas is just around the corner. We know you have a lot to do before the big day, but don’t forget to order your flowers. They are the best decoration money can buy!

Friday Florist Recap 12/14 – 12/20: An Influx of Holiday Goodness

Christmas is in the air, and florists across the country are creating some very impressive arrangements to celebrate! We have reindeer, snowmen, a snow-covered village and some creative candy cane work. We also have a collection of some of the most impressive floral arrangements you’re likely to see this week. Scroll down and enjoy this influx of holiday goodness!

Special Occasion Flowers

A tablescape from A Flower A Day in Colchester, VT

A magnificent tablescape from A Flower A Day in Colchester, VT

“We used pieces from around the shop and our home with a mix of artificial and fresh flowers.” 

A magnificent arrangement from Fancy Flowers in Hialeah, FL

A magnificent arrangement from Fancy Flowers in Hialeah, FL [Read more…]

FSN Christmas Celebration!

Today we enjoyed a wonderful lunch together for our annual Flower Shop Network Christmas Party. The food was great, the company was better and the homemade desserts were to die for! To keep things interesting, we also held an Ugly Sweater Contest. I’ve never seen so many people wearing working lights! Take a moment to peruse through this photo tour of the FSN festivities and Happy Holidays!

Ugly Sweater Contest

To help everyone get into the Christmas spirit, we also held an Ugly Sweater Contest. And let me tell you, folks, our people didn’t disappoint. These are some UGLY sweaters.

Giving Gifts

Did you think that was all? Not quite yet. Brock and Loranne decided to hand out some Christmas gifts and everybody got a little something.

And yet the giving wasn’t done yet …

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Here’s a load of food that the employees of Flower Shop Network donated to the food drive for local schools!

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Happy Holidays from Flower Shop Network!!

20 Card Messages Perfect for Your Season’s Greetings!

FSN Season's GreetingsFlowers are the perfect gift. They are beautiful and one-size-fits-all. They are fun to order and even better to receive. So we have put together some card messages to help you share the love for all kinds of reasons this season. Enjoy!

Seasonal Wishes
Warm greetings perfect for any celebration.

  • Snow may blow
    ice may freeze
    but I’ll never find better friends such as these!
    Much love to you, my friends.
  • Joy to the World! And all happiness to you this season.
  • May peace find you this season and keep you year round.
  • Wishing you and yours all the magic of the season.
  • Here’s hoping this joyous season is full of many more surprises!

 

Baby, It’s Cold Outside!
These are some romantic card messages that are sure to keep the home fires burning.

  • I trust in miracles this season because I found you, my love.
  • I couldn’t wait for Christmas to tell you how much I love you!
  • My best memories from this year have all been with you.
    Thank you for being such a wonderful part of my life.
  • You make every day merry and bright.
  • Peace. Joy. Happiness. I have it all with you dear!

 

Auld Lang Syne
Here are some sayings to wish someone all the best this new year.

  • 2014 is going to be YOUR year! Live it up!
  • We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne. Happy New Year!
  • “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
    And next year’s words await another voice.”
    – T.S. Eliot
  • May your past inform your future this bright and shiny New Year.
  • We are wishing you all the very best for this New Year with health, wealth and happiness

 

For The Kwanzaa Celebration
A few phrases to help rejoice in your heritage and share the bounty of the year with loved ones.

  • Wishing you and yours a joyous Kwanzaa!
  • Sharing with you the bounty and blessings of the season. Heri za Kwanzaa!
  • As you observe the Nguza Saba this Kwanzaa, may these colors add to your celebration of past, present and bright future!
  • From our family to yours, we wish you the joy and light of a festive Kwanzaa.
  • …dare to practice the ancient ethical obligation of serudj ta
    — to heal, repair, remake and renew the world,
    making it more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.

    – Dr. Maulana Karenga

 Remember to always use a real local florist for the best flowers and service!

Get Your Flowers for Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community & Culture

Kwanzaa celebrates African heritage in African-American culture and is based on the year-end harvest celebrations which have taken place throughout Africa for thousands of years. Decorations contain the traditional colors of red, black and green and hearken back to those African roots. If you want your decorations to focus on nature and all its wondrous bounty, there’s no better place to start than your local florist!

Kwanzaa Unity contemporary-cheer-kwanzaa-flowers.425

Creative Arrangements in Kwanzaa Colors

Contacting your local florist opens up a vast world of creative options. Flowers come in all shapes, sizes and colors, so there are few limitations to what can be done when someone talented is doing the designing. Do you have a specific idea you want to see brought to life, perhaps a theme you want the designer to illustrate? All this and more is possible when working with your local florist. They can create something unique and amazing made especially for you!

Preparing for the Feast

The Feast is the grand finale of Kwanzaa, a culmination of the seven day celebration and an opportunity to gather loved ones together for food, family, community and fun. Just as local florists decorate homes and businesses for Christmas, they can help decorate your gathering for the Kwanzaa Feast! Just let them know what you need, in advance of course, and they can create something gorgeous that perfectly illustrates the principles of Kwanzaa in dramatic fashion.

When you use your local florist, the options are unlimited! Joyous Kwanzaa!

December Newsletter: Merry and Bright

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November was a month dedicated to giving thanks, but the focus in December is purely on giving. It is a month for being generous, helping those in need and seeing the joy on loved ones’ faces as they receive gifts. Each of the holidays in December extol family, community and love. That’s why this is the favorite time of year for so many.

As you decorate for your holiday bash, or even if you’re attending someone else’s, don’t forget the flowers. From centerpieces to wreaths, flowers are a time-honored tradition!

We hope that you and yours experience the warmth of each other’s love this holiday season.

Happy Holidays!


Peppermint Posies Yuletide Basket

Decorate, Don’t Procrastinate!

Now that Thanksgiving is in our rearview mirror, it’s time to look ahead to Christmas!

Don’t Wait When Preparing for Christmas

No holiday is more important when it comes to early planning than Christmas Day. It has been estimated that over 95% of the US population celebrates Christmas. That means for every outside vendor you need to use in planning your Christmas party, you are competing with everyone in town for their business! It’s important to get started early and make sure you get your name on the list. There is no time or space for lollygagging. When it comes to your Christmas celebration, you want it done right!

Continue reading Decorate, Don’t Procrastinate!


Best reasons to Send Flowers in December!

There are so many reasons that flowers make a perfect gift. Through color, texture, shape and fragrance, your local florist can help you discover a genuine way to reach out to those important people in your life. So without delay, here are the best reasons to send flowers this December.

1. December Birthdays – This reason tops our list because those friends and family who have birthdays during the month of the December always have to compete with so many other festivities. A birthday should be the unique celebration of just one person. Make the day truly about your loved one by sending beautiful birthday blooms on their special day.

2.Winter Solstice – December 21st – In the Northern Hemisphere, this day is often referred to as the “longest night.” Each year, as the world spins, there comes a point where the lengthening of winter days reaches its apex and this has long been celebrated as the Winter Solstice. While sometimes the winter blues can get us down, you can brighten someone’s day with a cheery wintery mix of beautiful flowers. Smiles are sure to lighten up any dark day.

3. Christmas – December 25th – Flowers are a fantastic way to decorate for Christmas and make a wonderful gift for the entire household. Whether sending deep red roses with bright green stems, a fragrant holiday wreath or a breath-taking centerpiece that ties the dinner table together, you can show your warmest love from afar and be a presence in the home of those you hold near and dear.

Continue Reading Best Reasons to Send Flowers in December!


Facebook Friday: November Favorites

We provide a Friday recap of all the wonderful posts and pictures from active florists on our Facebook Page. It’s been so much fun seeing all the completely different designs every day. We hope you enjoy these favorites and continue through to see more from each Friday this month:

Bride with White Bouquet 

Hobby Hill Florist, Sebring, FL

Bridal bouquet from A New Beginning Florist in Moore, OK

A New Beginning, Moore, OK

Gorgeous casket spray by Tammi Cribbs of Oran's Flower Shop in Kingston, TN

Oran’s Flower Shop, Kingston, TN

Amazing arrangement from Tom Kenisdon AIFD of Crossroads Florist in Mahwah, NJ

Crossroads Florist, Mahwah, NJ

Excellent centerpiece by Inspirations Floral Studio in Lock Haven, PA

Inspirations, Lock Haven, PA

Red and Yellow Bride's Bouquet by Monday Morning Flowers

Monday Morning, Princeton, NJ

See all Facebook Recap pictures in these posts:


FSN Member Wins SAF’s Surprise Flowers VaseOff! Challenge!

Lemonesque

Congratulations to Walter Fedyshyn of Phillip’s Flowers and Gifts in Chicago, IL for winning the SAF’s Surprise Flowers VaseOff! Challenge!

The VaseOff! Challenge

The VaseOff! Challenge is a competition put together to increase consumer awareness of the expertise of local florists and which showcases their ability to design specifically for an individual. Walter Fedyshyn was paired with a Chicago-based blogger named Melissa Williams who writes about DIY projects, design, home decor, travel and much more! He read her blog and perused her social media pages to learn as much as he could about her, and then created a design with those bits of knowledge in mind!

The resulting design beat out the other three competitors for first place! Good job, Walter!

Read more about FSN Member Wins SAF’s Surprise Flowers VaseOff! Challenge!


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3 Hot Holiday Florals!

The holidays are here and there’s no better way to celebrate than decorating your home with floral goodness. It doesn’t matter which holiday you’re celebrating, your local florist has everything needed to make something unique and beautiful. Here are three hot holiday florals to make your season bright!

Floral Centerpieces

One of the hot floral items any holiday season is floral centerpieces! These make the perfect decorations for placing on dinner tables, end tables or fireplace mantles. They make a great gift for the host or hostess of a holiday party, or they can be used to decorate those bare surfaces in your own home. If you are looking to spruce up your holiday decorations, floral centerpieces are the way to go!

Wreaths

What one item says, “Happy Holidays” more than a natural wreath? And when you buy from your local florist, you know the end result will be both creative and gorgeous. These round, holiday symbols can be hung on your door, on your wall or even along your front porch. And talk about gifts! Wreaths, like centerpieces, make excellent gifts for the host or hostess of any holiday party.

Floral Swags

In case you aren’t sure, this is a string of flowers and greenery that can be draped along the mantles of fireplaces, strung along the wall and even hung around your mailbox! These are the perfect complement to any holiday decor and can be designed by your florist to match the color scheme of your home. No holiday decorating job is complete without a few floral swags.

Read more about 3 Hot Holiday Florals!


FLOWER CARE TIP Immediately remove dead or wilting leaves and stems from fresh flower arrangements.      More Flower Care Tips

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The FSN Turkey Shoot: Having Fun and Meeting Goals The sales team here at Flower Shop Network, just like the sales people employed by your business, has sales goals. And also like you, we try to find new and interesting ways to motivate our sales team to not only meet but exceed those goals. Our last contest was so successful, we thought we’d share this fun, seasonal idea with all of you. It’s the FSN turkey shoot!

Enjoying a Thanksgiving Potluck with FSN! Flower Shop Network is going to be closed on Thanksgiving Day, so the FSN family chose to get together this Thursday for food and fellowship. We decided to go potluck style this year, and let me tell you, some of these folks can cook! Most of the food in these shots is homemade and it was all delicious. Enjoy the images, but let me tell you, the reality was fantastic!

Turn Holiday Frazzle Into Holi-dazzle! In the last few years Christmas style has changed dramatically. We’ve moved away from the traditional green and red to something completely unique. You now see Christmas trees in every color, holiday decorations in all sorts of styles, and so much more non-traditional decor than ever before.

Happy Kwanzaa! Make your Kwanzaa celebration beautiful and memorable this year with a special flower arrangement in the traditional Kwanzaa colors of red, green and black. Kwanzaa celebrations last 7 days; observed from December 26 to January 1 each year.

Help make Flower Shop Network‘s monthly newsletter even better! Got questions? Have an idea for a story? With your help, we can make the FSN newsletter just what you want and need. You can drop us a note in the comment section on the blog or email us at social@flowershopnetwork.com. We can’t wait to hear from you!

All I Want For Christmas Is Flowers!

All Is Merry And BrightHoliday shopping is here and the countdown to Christmas is drawing ever closer for 2013. In this season of giving, you might be feeling all warm and fuzzy about the perfect gifts you have found for loved ones but that’s if you started your shopping blissfully early. While you are putting your feet up and nestling in to munch cookies and watch your favorite holiday movie, the rest of us are scrambling around in the cold trying to remember where we parked the car.

Holiday Gift Grind

If you are like me, you are starting to feel that stressful holiday buzz. There are a few people left on your list and heading to shopping centers can be a little hectic right now. Ok, maybe a lot hectic. And let’s be honest – the people whom you are still shopping for aren’t the kids who gave you a mile-long list or your mother-in-law who always wants the same perfume no matter what. The people without presents under the tree are probably all those delightful sorts that just insist they don’t need a gift from you. The nail-biting part of the equation is you know good and well that they have found an excellent, thoughtful gift for you (they started shopping in July, no doubt) and your psyche will never recover if you show up empty-handed to their holiday party.

Christmas Presents in the Bag!

You are in luck because there are unique, beautiful and highly personalize-able gifts to be found at your local florist! From luscious blooms in fantastic seasonal colors to gift baskets filled with goodies to wreaths that speak to the joy of the holiday, there is something that is a perfect fit for all those present naysayers out there.

Lovely flowers artfully arranged in attractive vases and baskets can be delivered right to a recipient’s door – always making it an extra special (and hassle-free!) gift. Order flowers to be delivered the day before her party and your hostess will be overjoyed to have some fresh cut wonderment to add to her decor. Arrange for flowers to be delivered to your friend’s work to show you are thinking about them and to help them get into the Christmas spirit even while on the clock.

Flower arrangements are the best gifts for those who claim they have everything they want. There is nothing to return, nothing is too small and nothing to store somewhere. Just the beauty and aroma of nature to enjoy. This is truly a one-size-fits-all gift that can be as unique as the person receiving them. A few minutes online or a quick call can put you in touch with a talented florist who is skilled at creating a bouquet that expresses the love and cheer you want to give to your family and friends this season.

Always Use A Read Local Florist

The sooner you reach out to your local florist, the sooner you can sit back and bask in the way you neatly wrapped up all your gift-giving this year. And when December rolls around again, all those “Oh you don’t have to” people will be saying, “All I want for Christmas is flowers!”

Holiday Norfolk Island PineCherry Red Tulup ArrangementChristmas Flowers With Accessories