Aria Emily

Hi everyone,

Well, she has arrived, quite late but, my goodness, she was worth the wait. And her name - Aria Emily. And like her brother and two cousins, she has brought great joy to the whole family.

And speaking of the other grandkids, the two eldest, Hermione and Xavier were flower girl and page boy at a family wedding yesterday. Please forgive a proud grandma for including the following picture.

And now to ikebana. I recently came across a flowering Eucalyptus Macrandra  growing on a median strip near by. I used it in the wall arrangement without any other material. The interesting thing about this tree is that it had buds, flowers and seed heads all at the same time, thus making it ideal for the lesson 'Only one kind of material'.

Buds

Flowers

Seed heads

Last week we had our AGM and first workshop for the year. My sisters in law, Betty and Toula ran the workshop which had as a theme 'Use your imagination with balloons; in water or with other material'. They put a great deal of effort together with imagination and creativity and conducted a workshop which was both informative and enjoyable. I have included a couple of photographs of their work but I urge you to go to our webpage to see the rest as well as the work of the attendees.

Betty Karanikolopoulos
Palm spathes, balloons and onion flowers in a
ceramic container

Toula Karanikolopoulos
Hand painted balloons, Rope that has been wired and begonia
leaves in a self made container

The next two arrangements were made with branches of my persimmon tree that broke accidentally. I should point out that persimmon branches break very easily. So, naturally, they had to be arranged but the fruit are very heavy and the challenge was to find containers that can hold them.

This is a Graham Wilke container which is quite heavy. I placed the branches
diagonally across the container for stability and added the now ubiquitous hydrangeas

This tall vase filled with water has enough weight
to carry the four persimmons. I added an hydrangea
and Crocosmia for colour

And a couple of arrangements just for fun:

I dedicate this arrangement to my cousins, Steve and
Nieves, who gave me this orange metal piece as part
of my Christmas gift. Do they know me or what?
I used with it crocosmia

And this I dedicate to my sister, Vicky for giving me
the bull rushes to which I added aquilegea leaves

By the way, hitherto, I have not included my email address in my 'Complete Profile'. I have just amended that so, for those of you who have tried to contact me but were unable to do so, you can now email me.

Until next time,
Emily