happy new year!

happy new year to my dear readers!  we are heading to japan tomorrow evening for vacation (finally) and will be celebrating 2013 across multiple time zones.  we'll have to stop by the duty-free store before boarding and grab several bottles of bubbly and pop one each time we hit midnight -- kidding.

make sure to check photosbybusyb.blogspot.com on the regular.  i'm going to try to post pics along the way (so long as we have internet access).  we got ourselves a 14 day rail pass and plan to use it EVERYWHERE.  we're hitting up tokyo, osaka, kyoto, nara and ogimachi and there'll be plenty of eating and drinking along the way.  somewhere between all of this, we'll do the touristy bit too, i.e., visiting some UNESCO sites along with seeing Mt. Fuji and the snow monkeys.

my japanese is a bit rusty and i'll be relying heavily on pete's language skills.  i'm still trying to remember how to ask someone to take a picture of me, but every time i try to say it, i end up saying "can i take a picture of you" -- a bit creepy, right?

and this can't be a post about new year's with revealing my own new year's resolution.  clearly, do more flowers and take more pictures and, of course, lose weight.  one year, my resolution was to be more patient, which lasted no longer than 2 weeks.  in order to make this a successful resolution year, i'm going to be flat-out indulgent:  do more international traveling, something that you don't need to twist my arm to do.  see, i'm already starting 2013 on the right foot....

with this, have a safe and happy new year!

sweet peaony and random mumblings

peonies, sweet peas, mums and busy ivy

every now and then, i mistake some random guy for pete.  happened yesterday at whole foods.  some dude with a shopping cart was lurking behind me while i picked through the berries and i started talking to him, mainly because i was looking down and he was wearing a similar coat to pete.  he kept walking away from me and i got really upset until i finally looked up.  it wasn't pete.  sort of embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as the time that i hooked arms with a stranger in bloomingdale's.  pete won't let me live that one down....

and unto flower talk, i had to do something with the leftover sweet peas....  i added some peonies and mums and i'm calling this bouquet sweet peaony.  in a similar vein, if pete and i combined our names, we could be "bother" (my favorite) or "pether" or "beter" -- any other suggestions?

sweet peas, peonies, mums and bush ivy

sweet peas, peonies, mums and bush ivy

raspberry + citrus

juliet garden roses, japanese sweet peas, kumquats and bush ivy

both a little color study and a little something that i put together this morning.  i managed to squeeze a photo or two before delivering the arrangement to one of my favorite people.  i hadn't realized until today that the sun takes its pretty a** time rising in december; it was a no show until 7:05am.  but the the sweet peas do make up for all the winter darkness and gloom.

so i thought it would be kinda interesting to manipulate the photo file a bit, perhaps for a little drama or maybe even a little vintage.  let me know which one you like the best.

juliet garden roses, japanese sweet peas, kumquats and bush ivy

juliet garden roses, japanese sweet peas, kumquats and bush ivy

roses and hydrangeas

something blue...and lavender with a sprinkling of jasmine vine.

briana + taylor

check out two cuties and a charlie brown christmas tree (a little white pine sapling from my november walk in the woods with petey and his family)

flowers, always, and always

"i must have flowers, always, and always" -- claude monet

white festiva maxima peonies

some lovely white peonies given to me on my birthday earlier this year.  very humbly arranged -- i wanted nothing more than to watch them open and let their fragrance fill the studio.  simple pleasures, really.

white festiva maxima peonies 

white festiva maxima peonies 

white festiva maxima peonies

happy thanksgiving!

my favorite holiday of the year!  i love the gathering of family, the good food to eat and an opportunity to reflect on the things i'm thankful for:  life, family and good health.  oh, and for the new england patriots.

my sister and i put this arrangement together.  with all the crazy preparations for dinner, we couldn't stop by the flower market so we rushed to our local trader joe's on thanksgiving eve for some flowers.  something is better than nothing and no holiday can go without flowers, not at least in our home.  i hand-tied this budget-friendly bouquet of ilex berries, eucalyptus, roses and alstroemeria.

 

woodland terrarium

i posted a picture of my humble woodland terrarium in my last post.  sue wanted to make one and i love anything woodland-themed, particularly one that reminds me of a new england woodland.

what we set out to do was simple, really; something green to keep indoors and something made from the backyard.  we gathered materials from the woods -- princess pine, ground cedar, partridge berries and moss from a fallen log.

princess pine, partridge berries, baby fern and ground cedar

the materials we used were:

- big glass bowl purchased from a yard sale
- leftover rocks saved from a flower arrangement
- potting soil
- foraged materials

and we put everything together in layers:
- first, a layer of rock
- add a layer of soil (not too much)
- add the plants -- place as you wish and press them down into the soil
- add a layer of moss around the plants (tear as necessary to cover the plants; moss should be gathered with some of the tree bark attached to it)
- add some rocks here and there
- mist with water, not too much but just enough to get everything covered
- and cover with lid or plastic wrap after a day (it should be uncovered for a day once every 3-4 weeks or so)

into the woods

my weekend in the woods and later this week, my woodland terrarium made with foraged plants.

betty + steve

super cute couple.  come see at photosbybusyb.blogspot.com.

sandy

so sandy sucked, a lot.

we made out relatively ok, but some didn't and my heart goes out to them.  the power went out on monday night and our cell service followed pretty soon thereafter.  our apartment building did a good job regulating the water supply but now there's no water for the higher floors (that would be us).  traffic lights aren't working, no subways and the buses are overloaded with people.  we showered once in three days (ew -- i know).  hence, we're now in massachusetts today and until the weekend.

UPDATE:  as i was writing this, i received a robo-call from ConEd that our power is now restored.

flowers from earlier this winter -- tulips, star of bethlehem, ranunculus, poppies, creme de la creme roses, blackberries and ivy....

tulips, star of bethlehem, ranunculus, poppies, creme de la creme roses, blackberries and ivy

batten down the hatches

bouquet of juliet garden roses, cafe au lait dahlias, golden amaranthus, chocolate cosmos, persimmons,
queen anne's lace, privet berries, umbrella fern and dried wheat

hurricane sandy is coming tonight (supposedly).  no MTA service until the storm is over.  likely, no anything else too:  whole foods, duane reade, the flower market or even walks outside....  we've stocked up on water, food and batteries and, if you're in the area, we hope you've done the same. 

(anna) here's a sneak peek into a project that i've been working on.  i didn't want to leak any of last weekend's images until everything was done; however, editing much higher resolution files on an outdated iMac certainly has its challenges....  i guess new camera = new computer -- yikes!

killing frost

and so it happened... a killing frost fell upon my dahlias last night and now there are none.  so it goes.

i've been quiet this october, only my full-time work and renovating my parents' kitchen to occupy the time.  next weekend pete and i will be in western MA to dig up the dahlia tubers and the annuals.  we plan on seeding the beds with winter rye if it's not too late.  hopefully, the rye will take root before the winter and protect the beds from the cold and windy days to come.  in the spring, we'll till the rye into the soil as green manure.  this is the plan anyways.

our car needs a break so we've stayed put in the city this weekend.  we're on track to rack up 18,000 miles on a 10,000 mile lease -- yikes!  and what do i do when i'm home?  well, i should be cleaning the apartment, paying bills and sorting through the piles of mail that are here, there and everywhere, but instead i made an arrangement or two, took some photos and tinkered in photoshop.  pete joined in the fun too, playing the photographer for some of these pics.

the flowers are cream yves piaget roses, cafe latte roses, poppy pods, cream cafe au lait dahlias, burgundy dahlias (sorry don't know the name), pink astilbe and chocolate geranium leaves.

cafe latte roses, cream yves piaget roses, pink astilbe, cafe au lait dahlias, poppy pods and chocolate geranium leaves

cafe latte roses, cream yves piaget roses, pink astilbe, cafe au lait dahlias, poppy pods and chocolate geranium leaves

fall garden bounty

i'm enjoying the last stretch of dahlias before the frost.

from the garden:

to the vase:

and two of my favorite dahlia "growers":