Coming in August

I have my first paying customers! In August I'm doing two weddings and a child's birthday party.

My first bride is Carson. She wants a country themed reception with sunflowers as her flower of choice. Her reception will be at the Kimball House at This Is the Place Heritage Park. The setting is small and intimate, with both indoor and outdoor spaces. I'm doing a bouquet, boutonnieres and corsages, doing several centerpieces, and decorating most of the chairs. I designed some custom, hand lettered invitations for her- I'm pretty excited about how they turned out!

My second bride is a young woman named Kylie. She wants understated elegance since her reception will be at the Garden Park Chapel. Her flowers of choice are pink calla lilies and blue delphinium. Hers is still a work in progress because she's not quite sure what exactly she wants.

The child's birthday party is a carnival themed neighborhood party for a 3 year old and a 5 year old. We're working on finishing up the last of the details right now.

I don't want to give away everything right away- I just wanted to put out a teaser for the pictures soon to come. I'm pretty excited!

How Elsabette came to be

I have always known that my my dominant creative and artsitic nature would direct my career choice. As a child, I taught myself to draw in church. When I was a teen, I taught myself to sew, and paint. The only thing that kept me in high school was my art class- thanks Mrs. Chiackmakis! When I was 19, I enlisted my good friend to help me redo my bedroom- painted the walls so it looks like an abstract, pixillated floral wallpaper, covered an old lampshade with fabric and fringe trim, and hand-painted a floral motif on my old washstand table. I'm glad my parents weren't mad at me for doing so since I didn't ask permission before I did any of this decorating.

My first job was working in a fabric store. When I started college, I worked backstage in a theater. I came to Utah to finish college, and took a job as a Wedding Hostess at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. I graduated from college with my interior design degree and spent a few years working in that field. For the past 5 years I have volunteered as a florist of sorts for Art & Soup, a local hospice program's fundraiser. I've come to realize a few things: first, I'm actually quite good at floral arranging; second, I love the organization and pressure of planning within a budget and strict deadline; and third, I want to do something that I actually enjoy with my life.

I sometimes think I would like to be an interior designer still, but ONLY if I can do what I really want- children's spaces. By that I mean bedrooms, hospital rooms, schools, etc. That's my dream job! If anyone can get me a gig doing that, I'd be much obliged. In the meantime, I have other plans!

So, what exactly am I doing here, and what is Elsabette Design? I mentioned working with Art & Soup. This year, I've had several calls from people familiar with my Art & Soup work, asking me to help them do their wedding flowers. I thought to myself, "I think this is something I can do!" And so here I am.

My main area of focus is doing floral arranging- bouquets, boutonnieres, corsages, centerpieces. I didn't want to strictly limit myself to just doing flowers though. I wanted to include doing party and event planning, as well as doing the occasional interior design consultation still. But mostly, I'm the flower lady! I love weddings and fun parties. I love making beautiful things and pretty spaces. I like taking someone's ideas and making them a reality. I love helping to plan tea parties, showers, birthday and anniversary parties, and helping friends put together their weddings.

I'll post my work as it happens- let me know what you think!