Go Local this Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is fast approaching and Local Color Flowers is so excited! We’re gearing up for loads of fun here at the shop and out in the community.

We’ll be offering beautiful arrangements made with locally grown flowers  for delivery in Baltimore City or for pick up at our studio Saturday morning from 9am-12 during our Mother’s Day Pop Up Shop! Order early! You don’t want to end up at the grocery store on Mother’s Day morning with the other late comers!

Did I mention we’re having a Mother’s Day Pop Up Shop at the studio on Saturday, May 9 from 9am-noon? We are! We’ll have the doors open and we’ll be selling wrapped bouquets, flower themed gifts, shares to our local flower CSA and gift certificates! Best to order your flowers in advance and pick them up during the pop-up to make sure you get what you want. We’ll likely sell out! We’ve also invited some of our fave Baltimore vendors to come by and sell their goodies as well! You’ll definitely want to pick up treats from our friends at Kinderhook Snacks, plants from Butterbee Farm, pots made by Irene and beautiful artwork by Bmore Papercuts. Stay tuned for more vendor announcements soon!

Think all that sounds fun? There’s more! Irene will be out at Becket Hitch in Greenspring Station for their Mother’s Day pop-up. She’ll be selling wrapped bouquets filled with locally grown flowers that you can grab on the go. Joining her at Becket Hitch is our good friend Charm City Cook selling the BEST brownies ever made! Go check them out!

 

Whew! It’s going to be a busy, fun, Mother’s Day week! We can’t wait to see you!

Buying Local, Making a Difference

Those of you who know us, know we talk A LOT about importance of buying local. The reality is, it’s not just talk. As a small business, we are committed to spending the dollars our clients give us in a way that supports our local growers and our local community.

We wanted to share with you some analysis on our spending this year.

Local Growers: We spent 49% of our income last year on buying flowers, foliage, branches and plants from local farmers. (up from 38% last year!) We purchased flowers from 21 flower farms this year (up from 17 last year)

We’re especially proud to say that 2% of our farm dollars went to farmers inside BALTIMORE CITY! While this may not seem significant…it’s HUGE! This is the first year we have ever had flower farmers inside Baltimore City. Thanks you to all of our growers! We hope to give you even more business in 2014!

Locally owned, small businesses: 19% of our total income was spent on small, locally owned businesses. Using our hard earned dollars in our own community is important to us. We love our local business partners including Carma’s, CVP, Charm City Cook, Kinderhook, Chesapeake Wine Company, the Food Market, Apothecary Wellness and many many more.

Local Designer: 15% of our total income went to pay our amazing TEAM! Our designers and delivery helpers are locavores themselves that love Baltimore and love to support local business.

Chain Stores in our Neighborhood: 12% of our income was spent at chain stores in our neighborhood. While these businesses (Waverly Giant,  Waverly Ace,  Govans Carroll Fuel etc) are not locally owned, they are located in our community and employ local folks.

Non-local business: The last 4% of our income was spent at non-local businesses. Most of this money was spent on vases, our new wreath maker and other floral supplies.

Buying local is an important way to show support for your neighbors and your community. As a small Baltimore business, Local Color Flowers will continue to buy local, support small businesses and farms, employ local designers and strive to make an even more positive impact on our community. 2014 is going to be awesome!

Makers Alley 2013

By Carling A.W. Elder

On December 14th, 2013, Local Color Flowers hosted the first ever Makers Alley - A Pop-Up Gift Market at our studio, and it was a great success!

Waaay back in the summer, as we began planning for the holiday season, the LoCoFlo crew started daydreaming about hosting a small, intimate, fun, & friendly holiday market in our studio. As we brainstormed, we grew more and more excited about the idea of a holiday market where it would be really easy (and fun) for our friends, families, and communities to purchase locally made gifts for the holidays. We decided there really was a need for a gift market where you could buy handmade food and crafts before the holidays, and so, Makers Alley was born!

The first step was to invite some of Local Color Flowers’ talented friends and partners to participate. Luckily, Rat Czar, Priya Means Love, Charm City Cook, Kinderhook Snacks, Snark Machine, Two Back Flats, and Highway to Hill responded to our invite and said they would love to join our vendor list. Needless to say, we were thrilled to have each of these amazing people and their products at Makers Alley!

The weather for the day of Makers Alley was predicted to be snow and “ice pellets.” Luckily, the snow held off and the “ice pellets” were remarkably absent. Precisely at 10 AM,  guests started streaming into our studio to shop at Makers Alley. The guests sampled Charm City Cook’s silky caramel sauce, pinned Two Back Flats’ fascinators to their heads, chose a Locoflo wreath for their door, grabbed Rat Czar’s BALT bumper stickers for their friends, munched on Kinderhook Snacks' savory cheese stamps, spritzed Priya Means Love’s fragrant perfume on their wrists, modeled Snark Machine’s colorful rubber band necklaces, delighted at Highway to Hill’s witty graphic prints, and shopped and visited!

One of the best things about Makers Alley was the feeling of support for all the vendors from everyone who chose to shop at Makers Alley. Deciding to spend your money locally isn’t always an easy choice, but it’s an incredibly impactful one. It was humbling to see so many impactful and conscious choices being made at Makers Alley by both guests and vendors alike.

Spring Design Class at Local Color Flowers

On Sunday, we hosted our first design class in our new space! It was so much fun to have folks in the shop getting their hands on flowers!

We started out with snacks picked up from the Sunday market including pastries from Chez G and Infused Spreads, treats from the Mallow Bar and the most wonderful salted caramel brownies EVER- from Charm City Cook.

After snacks, I gave a brief over view of some design techniques that we use here at LoCoFlo. We usually start with a base-branches, foliage, herbs etc. Then we go to our focal flowers-our WOW flowers. Then finally-all the other bits and pieces the help an arrangement move. We talked a little about color palettes, orientation and scale. Then-I introduced the flowers. This week we had crabapple, sand cherry, wild mustard, red bud, lilies, tulips (in all different shapes and sizes), daffodils, anemones, gerbers, ranunculus and curly willow.

Of course we talked about the awesome local farms that contributed flowers to our class that day (Farmhouse Flowers, Plant Masters, Lynn Vale Studios, Locust Point Flowers, Belvedere Farm and the brand new Castillo Flower Farm).

Once everyone picked their flowers-the creative magic began! Everyone made gorgeous spring arrangements in a variety of color palettes.  The arrangements turned out so beautiful!

Here are a couple examples!

Carling even took a little video!

We’re definitely looking forward to more classes in the future! Keep an eye out for a schedule of upcoming classes and events.  We hope to see you soon!