The build out of our Portland flower shop is coming along and I am excited to announce that our inaugural floral design class will be held in our shop in just about one month (more like 3 weeks)! With so many options available for creative workshops and courses in Portland we thought that it would be helpful if we delved into the nitty gritty details of what you can expect from our centerpiece design classes and how our workshops might be a bit different from others.

half the greenery, double the movement

Our design aesthetic is light, airy and fully of movement, with a penchant for omitting greenery! Through the methodical, yet artful, layering of floral elements, we will teach you how to achieve this look as well. On occasion, bits of greenery will make an appearance, albeit only with full purpose and intention, rather than as insignificant filler. We will teach you how to “read” your flower selection, to permit each bloom’s unique characteristics to inform you on most impactful application, rather than to letting your preconceived notions of design control placement. This is a carefully honed skill that takes time and practice develop and we are excited to share more about it.

sustainable and eco-friendly floral design

As you may have seen in a recent blog post, we are always striving to be a sustainable and eco-friendly flower shop. We will teach you how to achieve gravity-defying designs without the use of floral foam. We want to share our sustainability practices so that you, too, can join the movement and play your part in transitioning the floral industry away from excessively wasteful and toxic practices. Join one of our centerpiece classes in Portland, Oregon to learn more about floral design techniques that create masterful floral designs by way of sustainable mechanics.

bold color palettes

In case you haven’t noticed, we absolutely adore color! We are helplessly drawn to subtly obscure color schemes and colorful, yet contemporary palettes. We are excited to incorporate a unique color palette into each class to help each student expand their working comprehension of color theory. Learn how to make the most unlikely color combinations work by grouping, blending and strategically placing the blooms. We will chat about color theory (the actual theory, not our company) and how to leverage those principles in order to establish striking palettes for your clients and to aid you in navigating the overwhelming display of color that you will encounter at a flower market.

individual feedback and guidance

Our floral design studio space is bright and airy and perfectly suited for small, intimate gatherings…so we will be keeping our class sizes small. This will provide for plenty of time to work personally with each student and assist them with any road blocks encountered or questions that arise during the floral design process. We are here to help you and expose you to a fresh perspective, whether you are a brand new designer or a seasoned professional seeking to expand your floral design repertoire.

creative photography

Once your design is complete, we will photograph your floral arrangement after styling it on a beautiful table with candles and tasteful accents. You will receive the gallery of high resolution images to use on your website or social media. The unique color palette, striking composition and professional photography will give you everything you need to spice up your floral portfolio! If you aren’t interested in a career in floral design, then you’ll just have some gorgeous photos to print and frame as a piece of art in your home.

ABOUT THE LEAD FLORIST

Hi! Alyssa here! Now that you know a bit more about what to expect when attending our centerpiece classes, I will hop on and give you a little less-formal, personal introduction than what can be found on our Team page. I will be instructing all of our floral design classes and am so excited to do so. I have taken my sweet time in getting to this place of opening a shop and offering floral design classes and it is my belief that by taking so long in honing my skill, the craft of floral design and the art of creating masterful designs, that I am able to give you a unique perspective that may be hard to find elsewhere.

Before I happened upon floral design, I was an artist in every sense of the word. I grew up constantly drawing with pencil and always practicing realism. If I look back on my old sketch books from elementary school and flip through the pages, this is what you would find: a wrench, a fireplace poker, a light bulb, a water bottle, an eye ball. I was, evidently, not interested in being a “creative” or “original” artist that would sketch wild imaginings at the time - I was more concerned with honing the skill of mechanically and proportionally sound drawing and the most mundane subjects would do. When I entered high school I discovered Prismacolor pencils and my drawings came simply by adding those splashes of color. From there I naturally progressed onto painting, as the colors of a painted canvas appeared even richer and easier to manipulate. I gravitated towards oil since it’s more forgiving and relaxing to use due to the longer dry time compared to acrylic or watercolor. Once I graduated from college, having studied graphic design, I wasn’t sure what to do with the new skills I had developed and decided to continue on to get my MFA. Needing a part-time job during the application process, I happened to walk into a little flower shop in Chicago, merely by virtue of it’s close proximity to my Wicker Park apartment. They were a very small business and not hiring at the time, but they liked me and decided to bring me on board anyways! From there I started by washing a lot of buckets and walking daily deliveries to their destinations in the neighborhood. It wasn’t terribly long before I was trained to design and I totally fell head over heels for floral design. After working at this shop for several years I moved to a larger company called Jayson Home and Garden. They were an ultra-fancy home decor shop with a little floral department. I continued honing my skills here as a full time designer until I made the move to Ashland Addison Florist to serve as their manager in the downtown Chicago location off of Michigan Ave. Working for each of these companies taught me valuable skills in design, sourcing flowers and business management.

Due to the polar vortex of 2014, I fled Chicago to Austin, Texas where I joined Whim Hospitality, a mainstay of local wedding and event production. I became a lead floral designer who met with clients, ordered flowers, and led the event design and set up. We typically designed around 200+ events per a year, so designing became my life. The work was intense and never-ending with anywhere from 3-7 events per weekend. That job completely burned me out and I was pushed into starting my own business just so I could take a breath, re-center, and take a hold of my life again. Now that my business has been operating for three years, I have fallen into a rhythm that allows me to breath, but keeps me wonderfully engaged and busy. With all of this experience under my belt I have been able to see how many floral businesses approach floral design and have incorporated the experiential knowledge that I feel serves my design principles and business practices and left the rest behind. I am excited to share tips and tricks I have picked up along the way, as well as some unique techniques I have developed on my own!

Thank you so much for taking the time to learn more about my adventure in arriving where I am now! We’d love to have you in one of our classes. You can find more detailed descriptions of the floral classes we offer here. If you are ready to take action and bring your design game up a notch, pick up a ticket to one of our classes here!