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NOOK CHRONICLES

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Greenish Pursuits

Those who are familiar with the work we do at Nook Flowers, will also be familiar with my almost obstinate approach to keeping things fresh, reusing as much props and material as possible (not flowers of course!) not buying more than we need and my gagging dislike for plastic flowers (ok I just threw that last part in to make a point).

I am also a firm believer that whenever possible we should buy local – Malaysia has an amazing wealth of floral horticulture and unfortunately these are not given enough regard – and in doing so local business can continue to thrive. From an eco standpoint, it also gives us a chance to reduce our carbon footprint. Eco-chic is a label that’s thrown around carelessly and my personal belief is, it should not be touted unless one is prepared to walk the talk (and trust me when I say, bottomlines aren’t always the main factor).

So imagine our excitement when presented by with an opportunity by Orcavie to do styling based on our Zero Wastage ideas for the recent press launch of a premier automobile brand. Keeping true to the spirit of Zero Wastage, from the get-go we sent off emails to friends of Nook asking them to drop off reusable/recyclable containers which would then serve as containers. These fantastic folks came through and pretty soon we had a good consignment of mason jars, jam and condiment bottles, cute chicken essence jars and even some very nice wine crates! But we still needed an anchor style, so yours truly very politely asked the nice chappies at the Indian restaurant down the road for their empty condensed milk tins (these tins look quite smart with their labels off and horizontal ridges around the sides showing). As for choice of flowers local daisies, spider mums, kermits, ping pong mums, bear grass and cordylines took centrestage.

For a free standing centerpiece and the registration table, we used willows (dried and saved from Chinese New Year stock) and made the branches bloom with hundreds of paper flowers. By the way, each flower was hand cut from recycled newspaper. The container for the registration table was a glass brick left over from a renovation project.

Have a look at some photos from the event. Was it time consuming? YES. Was it labourious? YES. Was it worth it? Hell yeah!

August 2010

Brenda James is a 'florista' who runs 'Nook Flowers'. To view some of her beautiful creations, please visit her website at www.nookflowers.com. You can also the "Nook Flowers' fan page Facebook.

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