Designing in Compotes

I haven’t posted in awhile but the day has arrived when I have no choice! I’ve had the honor to be part of a group of designers from all over the country. We’re called the Chapel Designers. Last year was the first year for us and we got the shout out asking who wanted to meet our “fearless leader”, Holly Chapple of Holly Heider Chapple Flowers in New York City. It was just a random question from her but 17 of us all met in NYC the following March. This year it was 36 of us! I’ll blog about it in the posts to come. (I’ve been a little behind!)

We were able to do so many lovely things and met amazing designers. One of them that we were honored to take a design class at Flower School New York from was the fantastic designer Ariella Chezar. It was a class on how to design in a compote. After being in the floral business for 11 years I had yet to design in this way. A compote by definition is a compotier – a dish, usually of glass, china or silver having a base, stem and often a lid normally used to serve fruit or candy. These days compotes are becoming quite popular to use as centerpiece vessels. Martha Stewart recently did a post called Crazy for Compotes (though it was already in the works when it came out)! It is designed using a frog (a heavy pinned floral holder) inside the compote. Quite often a florist will use floral foam inside a vase to hold the flowers. The little frog is a bit of a challenge to use when you’re used to another method. The class was so inspiring that Isha Foss decided that we should each do an example of our own versions of the compote centerpiece.

This is the first one I designed. It’s in an antique compote edged in gold. I had flowers left from a photo shoot and it got so big and fluffy. The last bits I added were some branches from our Hawthorne tree. It’s not a traditional shape, this one is a bit higher than normal, but it’s so big and lush what’s not to like?

After looking at the first one all day, I decided that I would take it apart and try again. This one I designed in a vintage green glass compote. All the flowers were from the design above except with some small touches from my garden. This one has a bit of romance to it and as a friend said, weeds and roses, it looks like poetry. Love that! Which one do you like the best?

Following are images from some of my friends from the Chapel Designers. Please check out their blogs by clicking on their names below the photo. Enjoy all of the beautiful eye candy!

Isha Foss Events