Posts Tagged ‘Get Well Gift Baskets’

Tips for Long Lasting Flowers

Fresh flowers are beautiful and brighten up any room, but how do you make sure they live their longest and keep them fresh? Here are some of Terry’s tips for long-lasting flower arrangements.

The style you choose:
The shorter bowl-style arrangements will usually keep longer than taller vase arrangements. In a shorter bouquet, the water has less distance to travel, so it gets to the flower heads more easily. Also, when doing a pave type arrangement where the heads are gathered together, the flowers help keep each other up and lessen the chances of drooping.

Take notice:
l Keep the water fresh and change it every few days – the fresher the water the happier the flower.
l Some flowers can give off a sap that kills other flowers. Changing the water will help prevent this.
l Keep arrangements away from appliances that give off heat, such as a television or microwave.
l Keep fresh cut flowers out of direct sunlight, as it will burn them.

Feeding your flowers
You can use a flower food/preservative that should come with your flowers, or make your own. Here is a simple flower food you can use for arrangements:
l 1 cup regular 7-Up
l 1 cup water
l ½ teaspoon household bleach
The 7-Up provides sugar for the flowers and the bleach keeps bacteria from going up the stem and killing the bud.

Flowers that have the longest cut life:
Alstroemeria (Peruvian Lilies)
Gladiolas
Orchids
Lisianthus
Mums (there are great Spider Mums available)
Tropicals: Anthurium Lilies, Birds of Paradise, Ginger
Roses: Many hearty roses will give you a week, Spray roses last a particularly long time.
Roses vary and each color is like a different flower. Some can last a week and some just a few days. Some have large petal counts while others have much smaller ones. Some roses burst open and stay that way for a week while others keep a bud shape throughout their lives.

The more hollow the stem, the shorter the flower’s vase life will be.
Hollow stem examples include:
Tulips
Gerbera Daisies
Anemones
Iris

Holiday Gift Baskets – Custom Designs

Being an elf is not a job for the weak. For weeks now, Terry has been in the midst of designing holiday gift baskets for an array of clients.

Once again we are designing a whole holiday catalog for Universal Studios, a variety of baskets in all shapes, sizes and price points.

The wine gift basket pictured here features two Universal branded wines and great foods in a striking basket made from barrel staves.

Barnes & Nobles has just brought us an exciting opportunity to package their Nook electronic reader for the corporate market. Ususally when we design a corporate gift basket such as this it’s for promotional use by the company we’re designing for. But placing the incredibly user friendly Nook, with its various accoutrements, in an attractive container with coffee, tea, possibly wine and such makes a fantastic gift basket good for the holidays, a birthday or a get well gift basket. We look forward to offering this to our clients this holiday season.

There are other projects afoot as well, including one for Heineken that will involve clear ice buckets and fake ice…   Exciting! What can we design for you?