Super Huge Announcement!

Hey everyone! As I mentioned recently on my Facebook page I have a BIG announcement to share. I apologize for keeping you guys waiting, but I wanted to take the time to write this post to because I had more to say than is appropriate to try and cram into a Facebook status.

I’m just going to jump right to it.

Cattleya Chic is coming to an end. As many of you may know, this year I had a baby, my beautiful baby boy, Landon. I anticipated that operating my business while being a new mom would be a little hectic so I scaled back the amount of weddings I took on over the summer. Despite limiting the amount of weddings I took on I was struggling with finding the right balance between my roles and found myself overwhelmed, stressed and falling behind. Not good – for anyone! All the stress really took away from the passion I normally have for flowers and, much more importantly, I feel like I haven’t been able the quality or service to my brides that they deserve.

In addition, I do have to confess I have thoroughly enjoyed being a mom. I love getting to seeing him learning new things, be there for his goofy giggles and see him bust out his killer dance moves every time he hears “What Does The Fox Say”. I feel so incredibly blessed that I can be a stay at home mom and I really want to take advantage of the opportunity to do so. Time seems to move SO quickly and babies change SO fast, I want to be around for this time because I know it won’t last forever and once it is gone it isn’t possible to get it back!

That all being said it is so important to me to thank everyone for their support over the years. I don’t even know where to start, I am so appreciative to everyone who has used me for their flowers or recommended me to a friend. I am so so so thankful to other talented business owners in the community who have supported me like crazy – Melissa Rae Photography, Ashley King Photography, Naturally Chic and especially Andrea Wiseman Photography for being so generous with your time and skills to help me get going as well as supporting me as a friend and Jennie Lightle from Lucky Day Weddings for your loyalty, being a sounding board as well as an inspiration, ever encouraging and someone I can call a good friend! I know I missed some of you, I am terribly sorry! Thank you to everyone with their kind words… I have been overwhelmed by the comments from fans on pictures, super sweet words from past brides saying they would get married again just so they could have another bouquet from me (Kayce, Kelsey – I’m talking about you!) and the generous referrals from those of you who believe in what I do. I know I am a bit of a cheese, but seriously you guys have no idea how much it has meant to me, how many times I have been blown away by your kindness and enthusiasm! There have even been a few times like you all have made me feel like a mini celebrity in Red Deer. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Now, I am going to finish of with one more FINAL announcement that I am incredibly excited about! The super talented Travis from Calyx Floral Design is bringing me on to her team!! This will allow me to continue working with flowers, which I absolutely LOVE, while still primarily being a stay at home mom, which I also LOVE, and hopefully I will be a valuable member on Travis’ team and help take her business to new heights! I feel so blessed to be able to work with someone who is so sweet, talented and just as big of a flower nerd as I am! If you aren’t already a fan of Calyx Floral Design on Facebook, take a moment to go like her page to follow me on this exciting adventure!

Thank you all again for the support and kindness – much love!!!

Katrina

DIY Chevron Garden Markers

In case you didn’t already read my last post on starting a pinterest challenge, take a peek. I basically have made a commitment to myself to start working at actually doing the ever growing list of crafts I am pinning. It took me a little while to get started as we were out of town for may long weekend, and I have also been in the process of getting my poop in a group for putting in a garden. What better craft for me to start out with than a craft FOR my garden??

Pinterest inspiration garden markers

I saw these really adorable chevron garden markers and I thought they would be perfect! Getting my supplies was easy – I already had glitter on hand so I opted to do that instead of paint, I also had the mod podge and sharpies so all I needed to get was the popsicle sticks. I got mine at Michael’s for about $5, but I am sure you could find them at the dollar stores too.

I don’t have the nicest writing, and I am a bit of an anal Annie so I decided right off the get go that I didn’t want to freehand the stripes or the writing. I created a make shift stencil from thin cardboard I had in my recycling bin, and made up a document in word with all my planted typed which I printed so that I could trace them. If you decide to print off the the plant names for you to trace make sure that you use a size that will fit the width of your sticks.

First step is to use your stencil to either paint or mod podge + glitter all your sticks, you may need to do little touch ups along the way. When it came to labeling I found if I used my marker right onto the wood stick that the ink would bleed so I did a layer of mod podge on to all the sticks BEFORE labeling them. You will need to give about 30 min to allow the mod podge to dry. To trace the words, I just scribbled pencil onto the back of my paper and then set it on the sticks, and then traced the words so that the pencil on the back transferred onto my sticks. I then used the traced pencil as guideline for using my sharpie marker. There was a little additional lead that transferred onto my sticks, so I just used eraser to clean that up. From there I just did a couple of layers of mod podge both on the front and the back of the sticks to seal them up so that they will hopefully survive the elements in the dirt.

My finished garden markers!

I was super happy with how they turned out, I really thought they were super adorable. However! If I were to do this craft over again I would make a few changes, I think that I would use even larger sticks (like paint stir sticks?) so there is more to stick into the soil and still be able to read them, I would just use paint instead of glitter for a cleaner look and lastly I think I would just use some sort of spray on sealer rather than use the mod podge… the sticks felt kind of stickyish after it was all said and done despite leaving a lot of time for the mod podge to dry and whatnot. Overall it was a fun, cute and simple craft,  though a bit time consuming in order to allow time for the mod podge to dry . Now I just need the weather to cooperate so that I can finish up planting my garden!

Gather your supplies.

Trace your stick and create stencil

Use stencil to paint or mod podge on your sparkles

Do any needed touch ups while mod podge is still wet

All glittered! Do a layer of mod podge.

Printed out plant names

Scribble on the back with pencil

Trace over print outs to imprint the pencil on your stick

Pencil traced, just sharpie over.

After a couple layers of mod podge – the finished sticks!

Putting my little craft to use

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