We did a wedding on October 31st for a lovely couple, Sam and Roukoz. Sam is from Jordan, where one of the wedding traditions is to place a garland of fresh flowers on the bride and grooms vehicle. This vehicle happened to be a GIGANTIC Hummer Limousine.
I have been doing flowers for 15 years now, and have never once been asked to put flowers on a car. Needless to say, I was a *smidge* panicked about the whole thing. Those of you who know me personally, you know that MY *smidge* is often much more than a normal persons *smidge*. ;o) I had nightmares every night for a week before the wedding about the flowers not attaching to the limo, the whole thing falling off right in the middle of pictures, even the roses sprouting little evil monsters that ate the limo driver (okay, not really, but I had to put something in there to make it seem a little more nightmarish!) However, everything went off without a hitch, and I attached the whole thing in a matter of minutes. Here I am, passed out in relief that I was able to complete the enormous task set before me.
Halloween is tomorrow and we are really getting into the spirit today! We've been discussing Jana's costume for a party tomorrow (she's going to be a roller derby girl!) The name of her team is The *Crazy Daizies* and she is *Rose Blood*. I'm not going, but I need a roller derby girl name just for kicks...and we are leaning towards *Tigrrrrrrrrr Lily*. Anybody that comes up with a really cool roller derby name is more than welcome to join our team!
Arizona is wearing his costume today...he's a pumpkin wearing a pumpkin. :o)
If you were following our blog last year, you saw the arrangement that we made for Johnny Martin's mama. This super handsome world famous cameraman is such a sweetie pie and always orders flowers for his mom on her birthday, which happens to be Halloween.
Have a safe Spooky Day and we hope you get more treats than you do tricks!!! :o)
Yesterdays work day conversation included, but was not limited to; circus tunes summoning some crazy clown from *IT* into the shop, how much we love Arizona, whether or not Jana was going to talk about her gap tooth when meeting David Sedaris last night, my upcoming trip to Colorado, cake decorating and Cabbage Patch Kids. Jana and I are both children of the 80's, and therefore we each have one of these hard-headed little dolls. Jana's doll is Bernice (the nearly bald one), and mine is Nadia (the one with a whole mess of hair and freckles...just like me!). So, we both went home last night, found our dolls and brought them to work today. Nice little bit of nostalgia for a rainy day. :o)
This is Arizona....our new Greeter at Joyce's Flowers! He's the sweetest doggie we've ever met! He's a 10 year old Border Collie mix, that had been living with a couple that can no longer care for him due to health reasons. We just got him yesterday, and he's been settling in just fine! He loves any kind of attention he can get, eats treats up like they are going out of style, and has been following us around like a little shadow. We would love for all of our customers to stop by and say hello to the little guy...he's right here waiting for you!! :o)
Jana. To know her is to love her. To know her is to find constant humor in the odd things that she does, especially during flower deliveries. Like the time she chased down a run-away dog in a cemetary to take him home to his worried owners. Or the time I got a call from security at an office building where Jana had unknowingly dumped half the contents of her purse while on a delivery, leaving a random trail behind her. Today, Jana's flip flop broke. The first time, it broke while she was still in the shop. So she fired up the glue gun and fixed that bad boy. Or so she thought. While in the middle of a long delivery run, she discovered that apparently hot glue does not in fact hold flip flops together. So she did the rest of her deliveries, limping down long hallways and sidewalks, climbing stairs, one foot draging behind the other...looking quite similar to Igor. From Frankenstein. Seriously. We are not exagerating one bit here folks.
Verrrrrrrrrrrrrry dreary day here at the flower shop. Good excuse for coffee. We really don't NEED a reason for coffee...but we always feel obligated to come up with one. Some days it's because neither one of us slept well the night before, some days it's because it's sunny outside, some days it's because we have a lot to talk about and coffee keeps our throats moist so that we can talk even more. Some days it's because we are upset about what happened on *The Bachelor* the night before, and need coffee to console us. A lot of the time, Jana got a speeding ticket on the way to work, some of the time Sarah did, some days it's a full moon, some days it's a half moon, other days there is no moon.....and some days it's just plain icky outside. Behold the grande-half-caff-non-fat-caramel-no-whip-latte and the grande-non-fat-no-whip-extra-shot-mocha. Pure delight. Yum.
Hi all! Jana here. I have a favor to ask of you today. Please read.
This weekend Sarah had to put down her beloved cat Sinbad. Her heart is broken right now, as any of you animal lovers can imagine. Sinbad lived to the ripe old age of nineteen and loved his Sarah to the moon and back. She is not at work today, and I think she could really use some kind words to lift her spirits when she comes back tomorrow. This is where you come in.
Will you please leave a comment to this post to uplift Sarah? She gives so much of herself for this little flower shop and I think we all could be a great support right now. It doesn't have to be long and deep, and you don't even have to know her. Just something to let her know that she's appreciated.
Here is the only picture of Sinbad I could find. He's all wrapped up in a blankie to take his medicine. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this!
A couple of months ago, we had two weddings on the same day, and both used gobs and gobs of rose petals. We tore apart nearly 250 pink roses! We made a huge pile in the middle of the shop....and then it was so tempting and pretty, we both had to roll around in the pile for a while, and of course take pictures! Bet your job doesn't have these kinds of perks! LOL!
Here is a post that Miss Jana made on her blog a few weeks ago, regarding an amusing incident with a four legged furry creature. Be sure to watch the video at the bottom, and have your sound turned up to get the full effect!
Our crazy flower shop. There is always something interesting going on. For instance, the other day we were terrorized by this berserk mouse. He was running around in circles in the office, which meant we couldn't go in there to get work done. We erected a series of flower box barricades through the hallway to protect ourselves while we designed in the front and waited for him to take the bait on the mouse trap that we slid into the office with a broomstick and then ran away screaming. We wrapped packing tape sticky side up around a broom handle to grab orders that printed out from the computer without actually having to enter the room.
Sarah was the funniest part of the whole incident. She was afraid to look into the office because she was afraid the mouse may have gotten into some flower food that acts as a steroid that we use to keep bupleurum firm, and had turned into the Mouse King from The Nutcracker.
Luckily we have Ron, the hurly-burly biker guy who cuts hair across the street, to come and rescue us in sticky situations. He chased down the mouse and put him outside. An hour later one of our wholesalers came by with a delivery and announced that there was a mouse running circles in our parking lot.
It's actually a little sad. The little guy obviously got into something that was bad news, and I feel bad, really really bad, for laughing at him. I hope that he found a warm and quiet place to die peacefully and that he's not still out there running circles into the sunset.
Behold our centrifugally gifted rodent, and Sarah's escalating hysteria in the background.
Joyce's Flowers always supports the Kelsey Smith Foundation and the Golf Tournament that they have every year. (See post below for more info!) Each year we make centerpieces for the tables. We always try to keep in mind Kelsey's favorite color (blue!) and here is what we came up with this year. We had them all lined up on one of the tables, and Kelsey's dad and sister came over to check them out. One of them laughed and said *What would we have done if we would have had THAT MANY Kelsey's!?!?!?* and the other said *We would've been in BIG trouble.....*
We have been active in supporting the Kelsey Smith Foundation for the last few years here at Joyce's Flowers. Kelsey was friends with many of our customers, though unfortunately we never knew her personally. For those of you who don't know who Kelsey Smith is, please go to http://www.kelseysarmy.org/ for more information. There is a golf tournament being held on July 20th at Falcon Ridge Golf Course here in Lenexa for the Kelsey Smith Foundation....and I've got two tickets!!! I've been told that golfing is NOT my forte...so instead of forcing a large group of people that I don't know to put up with my lack of golf etiquette/knowledge/skill, I am going to give these tickets away in a random drawing. No strings attached! Anyone can enter, just email me at joycesflowers@sbcglobal.net Registration begins Monday the 20th at 6:30am, breakfast, lunch, adult libations and raffle tickets for some great prizes are all included. Oh...and a round of golf. :o) This package for two is valued at $300. The winner will be notified on Thursday July 16th. Any questions...please ask!!!
We are pickers. We love to pick. We are the people that are actually happy to peel after a bad sunburn, so that we can pick the skin off in the largest chunks humanly possible. We love to pick hot glue globs off the counter tops. But most of all.....we love to pick the great big glue booger off the tops of our flower glue bottles. The tricky thing is, this glue takes a good couple of hours to set up into a really nice firm booger...thus leaving ample opportunity for booger snatching. The rule of thumb: your glue bottle, your glue booger, you get to pick it. But sometimes booger envy sets in. Just a few weeks ago Jana had to hide her booger at the end of the night, because she knew that if she left it out in all it's glory, I would not be able to resist it. And she hid it. She hid it really well. Darn her. If you don't believe us about how utterly delightful it is to pick one of these...you should stop by the shop sometime and we'll make one up for you.
Last week, Jean and Walt celebrated their ******60th****** Wedding Anniversary!!!! Holy cow that's a long marriage!!! I should have asked them what their secret is when I was delivering the flowers. Their sweet son Paul sent them a giant basket to celebrate this great milestone. Jean used to work in a flower shop for years and years....so I wanted to make something like she has never seen before. Congratulations to you guys!!!!
Ah Prom...the dresses, the penguin suits, the awkward teenage boys trying to pin on their dates corsage, the girl's mom pinning on the boutonniere...driving your parents car, the dinner that costs more than an entire months wages from McDonald's, slow dancing in the school gym to the theme song from *Footloose*, and that kiss on the porch while your little sister is peeking out the window at you. This month is...you guessed it...Prom time! We get to do corsages and boutonnieres for the high school kids every single weekend this month. We thought it might be entertaining to show OUR prom photos from back in the day.
Our good buddy Dale, who is the catering manager at Holiday Inn down the street, showed up at the shop today with a big ol' basket chock full of Easter goodies for us!!! Jana and I were just whining to each other that we were in desperate need of some chocolate...and in hops Dale, just in the nick of time. We heart you Pointy-Toes!!!
One of our best customers, Michael, called today to order flowers for his wife. He said that he wanted "A big, gorgeous, colorful arrangement. Something that is just throwing up flowers." In 15 years, I've never had someone ask for puking flowers...but there is always a first for everything. :o)
We got our delivery van all pimped out a few weeks ago with some super fun flowers to match our *Flower Power* license plate. We all love the new look...and we've been getting quite a few people paying a little more attention to us out on the road! Better start using those turn signals all the time!! LOL!
Last week, we got uber-lucky and had quite a bit of publicity for our little flower shop. We have never gotten to experience anything quite like that before, and it was a blast! After we got *most* of our giggles out of the way. :o)
Here at Joyce's Flowers we REALLY love Fresca. We love our coffee in the morning, but we love Fresca all day long. We don't keep it here that often, because we can easily go through a case in a day. But during a holiday week, we indulge as much as possible to keep our spirits high. Here is a picture of our cooler...with enough Fresca to get us through the middle of the week. Hopefully.
Cute story alert!!! One of our very good customers, Matt, who is deployed in Iraq right now with the Army Reserves, sends his fiance Holly flowersquite often. This is Matt: He always signs the cards *A million Swedish fish*. Sometimes we wonder about the sentiments that some people put on their cards, and being the nosy creatures that we are...sometimes we just ask. We NEED to know these things, so that we can put the utmost thought and care into our flower arrangements. ;o) Matt told me that his most favorite candy in the whole entire world is red Swedish fish...but he loves Holly a million times more...so he always tells her that he loves her a million Swedish fish. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. Thanks for serving in Iraq Matt! Hope you come home soon!!
My building is somewhere in the vicinity of 100 years old. I've heard a lot of different stories about what kinds of businesses have lived here...mostly I've heard about various barber shops and hair salons. I have always wanted to see pictures of the house from "back in the day"...being the curious creature that I am. Someone told me once that a woman had lived here in the 70's. My neighbor, who owns My Granny's Attic (a great little antique shop!) got a big box full of pictures the other day and found this one for me. It doesn't have a date, but I'm guessing somewhere in the 1950's or 60's. There are a few changes, but all in all, it looks pretty darn close to how it does today! Minus of course, all the pretty flowers. :o) If you can't read the sign, it says "Glenda and Johnny's Plastercraft Accessories". Don't really know what a plastercraft accessory is...but I think that the picture is really cool!
One of my very best customers, Blair, and his wife Ana had a beautiful baby girl last week. Blair, being the very sweet guy that he always is, wanted to fill Ana's hospital room with flowers. Literally......FILL. Like a forest. The hospital has some guidelines for just how much *stuff* can be in the room, so we weren't able to go as over the top as Blair had envisioned, but we were still able to make a mini-garden of flowers. I didn't take a picture of the hospital room...but I lined up all of the arrangements for a group photo before we left the shop.
As I was delivering all of these flowers, the nurses were all just going beserko over them...so later on that day, I brought all of those gals an arrangement, so that they would have something to enjoy as well...and not keep going into Ana's room to look at her flowers. :o) I've been bugging Blair to get me a picture of the new little family...and he has failed...so I'm posting my own rendition of them. By the way...Blair used to own an auto repair shop...he sold it to one of his employees, now it's called D&J's Automotive...and it's the best repair shop in town! They do all of the work on the flower van, I wouldn't trust anyone else! They are located in downtown Olathe, across from the courthouse. Phone 913-768-0553. Ask for David...and tell him that Sarah sent you!
Christmas is still a week and a half away, but our *IT* bouquet for this year has already been chosen. It's called the *Holiday Spice Bouquet*, and it has been uber-popular for us this year. We like doing it, because there is a handful of cinnamon sticks in it...and they smell sooooooo yummy. We get inundated with the smell of wintergreens this time of year, and not that that isn't nice, but it gets old. Shaking up our olfactory experience is a good thing. :o)
Got some new stuffed animals in last week. Monkeys, elephants, dinosaurs, kitty cats, puppies and penguins! Never had penguins before...I think that they are just adorable. Had to line them up for a group photo! :o)
For some people, flowers are all about being big and showy...making a huge impression right off the bat. Not that there is anything wrong with that...but sometimes BIGGER doesn't always mean SHOWIER. Here is an arrangement with two dozen red roses. Instead of leaving the stems long, my customer asked that we create a tight, massive arrangement. It's about half the size of what we would typically do for that many roses, but I think it's far more impressive. AND....the roses are going to last a lot longer to boot! The longer the stem is on any flower, the harder the flower has to work to suck the water up to the top, resulting in a shorter vase life. I wish that more people would ask us to do their roses like this...I think that they would be pleasantly surprised with the results!!
My good friend Johnny, who is a world famous globe trotting cameraman, always sends flowers to his dear mother back home in Kansas City for her birthday. Which also happens to be Halloween! So I usually get to put together some sort of cute little festive concoction for her. Here's a pic of what she's getting today!
So earlier this week, Mary Margaret, one of my very best customers, calls me from Texas needing to order some flowers for a funeral for the mother of her sister-in-law Trish. She didn't want to send anything to the church, because she thought that there would be several arrangements there. She wanted to send something to the home, for the party that would be held following the burial. Mary Margaret gave me some information about the deceased, the main point being that she was an 82 year old, very Irish, super sassy-pants that LOVED to drink her Coors Light from a straw. So the theme of this flower arrangement was to be based around Coors Light and green flowers (Bells of Ireland). I've had some odd requests before...but none to date that have involved beer cans. So this is what I came up with.
And this is the response that Mary Margaret got... "I had to tell you what a hit that arrangement was! I was sitting there when it was delivered and you should have seen the look on Trish's face. She ABSOLUTELY loved it! Everyone was talking about it and how dang clever you are. We all kind of hated you for that. "Why couldn't we think of that" was the buzz. You totally made her day. I think that was better than you even being there in person!"
And this is the response that I got from Mary Margaret.... "Once again, I got all the credit for your hard work. Thanks for making me look so good, although the crack about the flowers being better than my being there was unnecessary. Trish called me yesterday to thank me herself for the arrangement. She said she was feeling pretty down when they returned from the cemetery but when she walked in and saw that arrangement it made her laugh and lifted her spirits. It was perfect and did exactly what it was supposed to do."
Today is Raymond's 90th Birthday!! I did several arrangements to go on the guest tables at the party, which was held at Deer Creek Golf Club. The colors were burgandy and ivory, but I thought that it would be more striking to do a monocramatic arrangement...so we went with burgandy roses and carnations, with a hint of purple limonium.
When I was getting ready to load the van, all the vases looked so purty all lined up together!
Just got some pictures back from a wedding that I did in August. The bridesmaids bouquets were comprised of twenty stems of raspberry and purple stock...they were so fluffy and smelled so good! Stock is one flower that I can actually still smell! The bridal bouquet was similar, but with a few "Ocean Song" lavender roses to make hers a little bit different. One of my favorite weddings of all time!!
HOLY COW! Those were the first words out of my mouth when I saw this picture. Now THIS is a corsage!!!
This is Brianna...she is my best friend's daughter. They live in Marshall, Texas...which is apparently the world headquarters for humongous, gargantuan Homecoming corsages. I've been in the floral industry for almost 15 years, and never seen, nor had requests for any such thing. I've made Homecoming corsages, but they are usually 1/100 the size of this thing. I don't know how the poor girl is even standing upright!!! And not only do they go big for the game day corsages, they also go big for the dance corsages!
Girls here in Kansas would never go for such a thing...they like their corsages small and simple. Three sweetheart roses is the norm around here.
It's funny how different traditions are in different areas of the country.
I guess what my best friend says is true..."In Texas, we go BIG or we go home!!"
We LOVE the color of lime green...and we REALLY LOVE lime green spider mums! They are super bright, fun and funky...just like us! ;o) We did a wedding last weekend, and the colors were lime green and white. We used over 50 green spiders throughout the wedding. The big bucket full of the spiders was just so pretty...I had to take a picture!
Over the last two and a half years, many people have wondered..."Who is Joyce?" Sarah is the owner...and that doesn't add up to a business named Joyce's. Joyce was the original owner. She started this shop in 1975, at 95th and Quivira. She owned it for many years, moved the shop to it's current location in Old Town Lenexa, and then sold it so that she could work full time at her son's church in Overland Park. Over the next several years, the flower shop was bought and sold a few more times, until it landed in my hands. I decided to keep the name the same, since it's been around over 30 years, why change it now? But, it never fails, when strangers come into the shop; they always ask for Joyce. Now, at long last, we have a Joyce once again! My birthday was on Saturday, and Jana's gift to me was a gorgeous beta fish. And of course, we named him Joyce. Yes, it's a boy...but we need *someone* around here with the name Joyce!
JOYCE'S FLOWERS 9228 Pflumm Road Lenexa, Kansas 66215 In Historic Old Town Lenexa 913-888-8232 www.lenexaflorist.com
Welcome to Joyce's Flowers! We created this blog so that our customers could put faces with our names, and see just who is designing the floral gifts they order for their loved ones. We also want to give you the opportunity to take a peek behind the scenes of the floral industry. This blog is going to focus on what is going on in our lives at the flower shop, whether it be about a wedding that we are doing, what we had for lunch, or some news about a special customer. We always welcome feedback, questions and opinions!
