Pages

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

My darlings!

Every once and awhile my beautiful friends, France, Van and Helene from Montreal come to TO for a visit and it's always the most lovely and hilarious time. If you can believe it, they slept in the store! These girls seriously rule.
Ladies, thank you so much for stopping over and taking my mind off of the stress of my business for a little while. I'll be coming to Montreal very soon to party it up!





Alison xo

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy Father's Day!


To my darling dad. Happy Father's Day. My dear blog followers have come to know you as the Coriander Dad, Coriander Delivery boy, Coriander Caterer, Coriander Renovator, my Coriander Cheerleader. If they only knew just how extraordinary you really are. Your generosity, endless encouragement and support astonishes me every day.Your enthusiasm for life is infectious. I know how blessed I am to have you so close. Just yesterday as we boarded the water taxi to deliver flowers to Toronto Island I thought, "this is a time in my life I won't ever forget." I've said it just recently but we've become quite the team haven't we?
We've always been the others sidekick but more so than ever it seems. I love how close you and Tyler have become. I love you so completely. I want to yell it from roof tops to honour you! A wee blog post will have to do.

And to my darling step father, Walter Morehouse, Happy Father's Day. Your quiet praise is felt deep in my heart. Truly your support and love come through loud and clear. I don't have a pic of you on this new laptop, remember the water damage fiasco? But friends, I can assure you he's a handsome fellow. Picture a cross between, George Clooney and Danny Devito, yeah, my mom's one lucky lady! Really, you're such an adorable human and you've loved us a whole lot. Thank you so much for all that you've done for me pop.

And to Tyler's darling dad Bill, my soon to be my Father-in-law, Happy Father's Day Billy! The love you've shown your boys should have won you some kind of an award. And you've been so very loving to me, thank you. I hope you're having an extraordinary day today. Much love.

To all you dads out there and father's to be, Happy Father's Day! To my brother~ way to go! Jack is an incredible young man.
To my friends and family who have lost their fathers and some of you much too soon, my heart aches for you today. I simply cannot imagine life without dad.

In celebration of fathers, let's have a dance!
This one's for you Diddy! It's his theme song.
Click here and dance with me!

Alison xo

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Wedding love





We've been busy little bees at the shop these days. We're in the heart of wedding season! Big high five to all my florist sisters and brothers out there who know exactly what we're going through. It's really hard to balance life right now but I'm doing my very best and certainly no complaints about being so busy, if anything, heartbroken that we're starting to have to turn weddings away! More pics to come!
Alison xo

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Love at first slurp!





When Lisa from A Food Gypsy came into Coriander Girl last week offering hand delivered fresh made soups, I thought, "This is a good idea. It's meals on wheels but soup and she's usually on foot so maybe it's nothing like meals on wheels! Or like any other take out because it's so different. It's fresh beautiful ingredients, sourced locally and the mason jar can go to great use here! She had me at summer split pea and dill and next week is tasty asparagus and leek. Nutritious gourmet soups in my fridge every week to get me through these long wedding work days, mom would be happy!
Thanks Lisa! Today's soup was extraordinarily delicious.
Alison xo

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Spring cleaning=sweet dreaming

I don't know what it is about re-arranging a space that makes me feel all giddy n' stuff but my goodness, it's so much better to work in the shop now!
After three weddings last week end, Kerriander and I decided we couldn't work like this anymore. The boutique was crammed with arrangements and with no work space, we felt uninspired and even a little crabby. Coriander Girl crabby? Oh yeah, it happens.
When customers come in to the shop on a wedding week end, they don't know what to do with themselves because there is no place to move! So, what did we do?
This picture below shows the old space, a central table for product, the long counter top and the space behind for storage(junk) and the long work table to the side was more retail space.


First, Coriander Dad removed the giant counter top I thought I needed, which really was just a catch all for crapola, he chopped her in half and we brought it down into the centre of the shop. Next we repositioned some of the carts and things at the back of the shop to accommodate the work table I had in the front of the shop. It's a whole new world!


Here's that space I was talking about behind the counter, a waste of space really. Now we can design back there, I can meet with clients around the work table and people coming into the shop don't have to weave around buckets of flowers and clippings all over the floor!


Here's the back area now! As you can see there are arrangements all around but not cluttering up the front of the house. I'll have more pictures of the rest of the space soon and pictures of the weddings we've done so far this season!


And here's the lil' doodle hardly phased at all by the changes.


I want to thank my dad for being by my side on wedding deliveries and for set up these past few weeks. We've been quite the team and he's even becoming as meticulous as me, if not more, when it comes to moving the flowers from the shop to the truck to the venue. He treats them with such care, like the delicate little master pieces they are. He's just so dear and treats me with such great respect when we're working and in life. I'm so lucky. Thanks Diddy.

Alison xo