A fall bouquet with leaves and berries from my street

An arangement of fall flowers and leaves from Margot Madison

I must talk a lot about how beautiful the color of fall leaves are in my family because my 5 year old son Oliver decided that he would "gift" me a collection of them every time he came home from the bus. It's adorable and sweet and it's true that each one is just as beautiful as the last. We have a pear tree (don't quote me on that, it's been a long time since the leaf collection in 9th grade biology class) down the street that seemed to produce the most glorious red colors this year. The leaves have a smooth waxy feel and their shape is a pretty little heart. My favorite this fall!

Last weekend I decided to try my hand at creating a fall bouquet. Of course my theme colors were (don't groan!) pink and gold which translated into deep red leaves, light peachy-pink roses and golden orange berries (which I also swiped from the trees on my street care of my tall husband). I think they were crab apples. Again, don't quote me on that. Oliver and I did the collecting of leaves together with dad experimenting with his iPhone movie camera feature. It was a family affair to be sure.

My sister and I have a running joke about how bad we are at flower arranging, so please understand that this is a learning project for me. Floral arranging, like photography takes a lot of practice and skill but I want to be better since I usually don't have a budget for the professionals, awesome as they are.


Anyway, I used thin 6" skewers (left over from my "Scary Skewer" halloween project) and gathered about 6 leaves into a mini bouquet and wired them onto the skewers. I made about maybe 12 of these and put them in a 6" by 4" tall glass cylinder vase. Then I added the roses and berries and the decorative paper to the outside of the vase. I made some additional smaller arrangements in some silver patterned votives from Crate & Barrel with grass fronds from my garden. Overall the arrangement cost me $6 for the roses (on sale at Kroger) and an additional $8 for the votives but I don't count those. ;o)

And on the photography end of things (one of my resolutions this year was to improve my photos) I think I may have figured out the "Effing F-stop" issue I've been having. More on that later...