Saturday, January 30, 2016

BIRTHDAY FLOWERS

A NEW BEGINNING

It all starts with one like my favorite singer Ane Brun sings. My very first blog post was on 29th of Jan in 2012. 2016 gretchen gretchen blog is 4 years old. Small joyful girl, I think. 

Ever since 2012 I've been changing things here in gretchen gretchen blog. But it has always been about creativity and inspiration. First I blogged in Finnish and English, then I decided to continue only with English. 


This is the third design I have on my blog and I have made all of them by myself. The second one was born after making a mood board. You can find a video I made of the mood board here. I have had many different kind of topics like DIY, food, photography, style, vintage, ceramics, art and concept, slow living, video, food photography workshops and personal posts. Which one you are interested? Just click the word you like and you'll find my favorite blog post of that topic.

I had a bit different kind of birthday blog post in my mind after Christmas but everything changed in my life on 30th of December. My dear mom got sudden attack. She died on 4th of Jan. So even though I try to be positive about blog's birthday you might understand why I choose to photograph only flowers and keep this blog post short. Flowers, gardening and indoor plants were my mom's favorite hobby or lifestyle I could say. 2012 I made a blog post about visiting her and I told you about her orange tree. Grown from a orange seed bought from grocery store in 1965. So it's now 50 years old. It has followed my mom always till now. Once I asked my mom why my flowers and plants doesn't look as good as hers? Ok maybe the question of watering but she did tell me that she talks to the plants, touch them and of course take good care of them.  

Literally this is a new beginning for me. Time heals they say. I have promised myself that I will cherish her memory in every way. She started oil painting only few years ago and I saw her skills growing quite fast. I got so much good from her I just hope I can use it well. I will end this blog post to one of my mom's favorite song Petit fleur by Sidney Bechet you can find it here. 


Life is simple. You only need love and care. That's about it.

xoxo
Kreetta

Sunday, January 17, 2016

HOW TO MAKE A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER ARRANGEMENT

CERAMIC FLOWER FROGS

flower frogs and photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com

How are you? It's been awhile I've been blogging here. I will show you this time my ceramic flower frogs I made before the Christmas. You can use them in making a beautiful flower arrangement. I was also honored to be featured in Happy Interior Blog by Igor Josif. Go and stop by his lovely blog and read the story about these flower frogs. I won't write the same story here.  Instead I write something very personal. But Igor wrote a very nice story. Thank you so much Igor!

flower frogs and photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com

You might know that my mom has suddenly past away two weeks ago. I'm feeling a bit better but still I am in the middle of mourning my mom. It's amazingly difficult to accept to losing her. I'm also sad about her life - not continuing. It is still unreal and somehow I only see her smiling in my eyes and I almost wait to see her when I go to her home. But no, we are going to have her funeral on next Friday. This time has been hardest ever for us. I love her so and I have decided to make funeral flower arrangement for her by my own hands. I'm sure it helps me on the way to accept that her death is part of life. We all have our own way of dealing with sorrow. I have to make things to feel better. I'm going to bake too like she did a lot because I feel I got my talents from her and I will use them to make her never forgotten. 

flower frogs and photo by Kreetta Järvenpää www.gretchengretchen.com

I already bought the base for the flower arrangement and next I will go to Pinterest find the flowers I want to use in my arrangement. After that I will order them from florist and of course because it's the winter time there might not be flowers like peonies. Peony is one of my mom's favorite flowers but also roses were deeply in her heart. I try to make a photo of the arrangement and show it here but I don't promise anything because it might be too hard task on the funeral day.


I want to make a flower arrangement to be a bit like poem. I've never done one before so it will be my first one. But it is the most important one too. This pic above is from my mom's hands in August 2014 when I had my birthday party in our garden. I invited women from my family and friends to make a flower garland with me before the party began. It was great fun even though I was so so excited that I could not concentrate to make it myself, funny. But I enjoyed a moment with my dear people around. That was enough for me. Also the birthday party was very lovely and I have very good memories of that. We danced the summer night away in the garden - my mom, me and all the lovely people.

I wish you a very cosy and happy Sunday!

xoxo
Kreetta 

ps. If you want to see the blog post about the flower garland you will find it here.
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