Sedum and Sage

This is the arrangement for the new welcome center from this last Sunday (10/21). Watching the sedum go from light pink to this nice dark redish pink this year has been great, so I just had to use it in an arrangement. These are from my parents' gardens, as are the sage and caryopteris clandonensis, which we're not sure of the common name. They had purple flowers and are planted with the sedum, and they're really pretty together.


For the arranging, this is just an empty kitchen canister I had, and I attempted using water proof tape to grid the top, but that just turned out to be a mess, and I didn't need it anyway. And then I found a table cloth in similar colors to fold and put underneath. Since the sedum was already rather dry, I didn't want the material getting all over the new white surface on the counter. 

Now, to think of what to do this week...

Some Floral Offerings

The last two weeks, no one signed up for the altar flowers at church, so I did some up--I got to do flowers and practice, and use one of my talents in a more ministerial manner.

The first week, I did a one sided arrangement in a cool circular vase I found at Michael's. There's floral foam inside, surrounded by shell pieces in two colors. The flowers are delphinium and bells of Ireland in the back, orchids, and Fuji mums. There were several things left, and I was able to put flowers on everyone's desks, and one orchid fell off, so I put it in a glass with some shell and wire (which you can't really see in the photo, but this one's prettier).

Last week, I did a hand-tie in a very tall vase for the altar, with red stones in the bottom. The lovely yellow roses were nearly the only open ones I could find at Produce Junction, along with orange and red carnations, pink alestrumeria (Peruvian lily), and some nice deep greens and a red hypericum berry. The feathery grass and cornflower seed pods came from around the church. I was definitely going for a fall/harvest color palate and feel.

Our new welcome center was installed last week, and I had plenty of flowers, both from what I bought and the grounds, for a smaller arrangement. This is in the brown teapot my aunt got in Japan in the 50s, which the pink lilies were in a few weeks ago. This view is from the top. The purple is butterfly bush, I think the rest are fairly common.

Dinner and Dessert

Last week, I made stuffed peppers for the first time, as my parents had an abundance of peppers from their garden. I made it with rice, sausage, mushrooms, onions, and home made tomato sauce, which I made a few weeks ago. They turned out pretty week, and even DH liked it. He doesn't like bell peppers, but he'll eat them for sausage. The only mishap was slightly burning my finger while boiling the peppers

And then yesterday, I tried a Paula Deen strawberry cake for the church luncheon today, and it turned out very well. It has a cake mix base, but there is strawberry gelatin in the cake, and the icing is a cream cheese base. There is strawberry puree in both the cake and icing, and I've gotta say, every time I use that little food processor I love it more. It's just the right size, it's easy to do several batches, and super easy to clean. I didn't use nearly as much confectioner's sugar (icing sugar if you're in the UK) as it calls for, and the icing was rather liquidy, and sticky when it set, but it did look nice and smooth. There's a whole tomato sauce jar of it left over, though. It was well received, and tasted rather good, as well. It's probably one of the prettiest cakes I've ever made. The flower is a Fuji mum.

The next post will be flowers, which I also did this weekend. And I know I promised one from Chanticleer Gardens, but I haven't got half of the pictures on my laptop yet. But I'll work on it. In the meantime, look up snail vine and take a look at it.