“Why” we are a florist is to challenge our imagination, spread interconnectedness in the community, and to do our part in preserving our planet.

The next step we are taking towards sustainability and preserving our planet is phasing out balloons. When we read about the negative consequences of latex balloons, mylar balloons, and helium, we decided not to purchase any new balloons. We will sell the inventory that we have, but you’ll see popular balloons disappearing as options on our website. The first selection we have run out of is our generic Happy Birthday balloons. We do still have a few milestone birthday balloons such as Sweet 16, 40^th, and 50^th, and “Over the Hill.” Just call us to find out what we still have in stock!

If you’re interested in what we’ve learned about balloons and helium, here are some of the statistics that went into our decision:

• Balloons can travel hundreds of miles before they land–which can be in the ocean, lakes, forests, or prairies. Wildlife gets entangled in the strings or ingests the balloons and strings causing injury and death. (https://wildlifecenter.org/help-advice/wildlife-issues/balloon-releases)
• Mylar balloons (the shiny foil balloons) never break down; they just become smaller and smaller pieces of microplastics. Latex balloons eventually break down, but it takes months, and they often affect wildlife before they have a chance of biodegrading. (https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/balloons-environmental-impact/)
• Balloons cause power outages affecting thousands each year, including in our own Arlington, VA. (https://www.arlnow.com/2022/04/20/balloons-caused-large-power-outage-in-arlington-yesterday/)
• “Helium is a nonrenewable resource with many crucial industrial, medical and scientific uses, such as in MRIs, superconductors and weather balloons. The U.S. is fortunate to be rich in helium; we produce 40% of the gas worldwide. But there is a global helium shortage, and projections of future helium demand indicate that we will face serious limitations in the helium supply within only a few decades.” (https://www.caryinstitute.org/news-insights/feature/helium-balloons-impose-toll-our-air-land-and-sea)
• As of 2021, it is illegal to release balloons in the Commonwealth of Virginia. “It is unlawful for any individual 16 years of age or older or other person to intentionally release, discard, or cause to be released or discarded outdoors any balloon made of a nonbiodegradable or nonphotodegradable material or any material that requires more than five minutes’ contact with air or water to degrade. Any person convicted of a violation of this section is liable for a civil penalty of $25 per balloon released or discarded…” (https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title29.1/chapter5/section29.1-556.1/)

Despite phasing out balloons as part of our commitment towards sustainable practices, we have partnered with several like-minded local family-owned businesses for alternative add-on offerings. Check out our River-Sea Chocolate selections, our Grace+Love Candle selections, and our Tea for All Reasons selections!

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River-Sea Chocolates is all of that! They are located just around the corner from us so we were able to tour their bean-to-bar factory, meet the owners, and try their delicious, small-batch, artisanal chocolates. We think you’ll agree that adding one of their chocolate bars or sampler gift boxes to your flower arrangement order is that decadent touch that you can’t get anywhere else!

Each chocolate purchase supports the Amazon River cleanup project called Projeto SUPaneiro in the Amazon Delta region where owner, Mariano, grew up and where his family still lives. As an avid standup paddle boarder (SUP), Margie loves this idea! Even more exciting is the way River-Sea transports their beans to the US. “River-Sea’s first shipment of cacao was the very first Sail Cargo shipment allowed in the USA since motorized cargo became the convention! Over 100 years!”

Why is this exciting? “The shipping industry accounts for over 80% of the world’s trade volume and 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.” ~United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

According to River-Sea, “Sail transport reduces carbon emissions by 99% over conventional cargo transport, while providing a more nimble and efficient sustainable solution for trade.”

But don’t take our word for it! Add one of our River-Sea Chocolates to your order and let us know what you think!

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Why We Chose Grace+Love Candle Company

We were looking for candles from a shop that has a philosophy similar to ours—locally owned and operated, offering a quality product, community-oriented, and focused on sustainability. Grace+Love is owned by the wife and husband duo of Natalie and Jamahl Grace based in Loudoun County. One of their missions is to donate funds towards minority education. You can read about their inspiring story here!

How are Grace+Love Candles Made?

The entire collection is vegan friendly and cruelty free, using domestically grown soy wax, phthalate free fragrances, and lead-free cotton wicks. What does that mean for you?

Soy wax burns clean (no blackened walls) with no toxins, carcinogens, or pollutants. Derived from soybeans, soy wax is a renewable resource and supports American farmers. It’s also biodegradable so it cleans up nicely with just soap and water. Soy wax also burns at a lower temperature than paraffin which means your candle will last longer!

Our Current Fragrances

We’re starting with five fragrances which we believe offer a nice selection of floral, fruity, and earthy. Click on each photo for more information!

Give us a call and let us know what you think! We’re eager for your feedback!

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Flowers

There are all kinds of flowers you can include in a Thanksgiving centerpiece. Yellow sunflowers and solidago bring brightness, while red flowering ginger and orange lilies give the arrangement dark color for contrast. There’s also lots of fun greenery you could add. Hypericum berries add pops of color, and seeded eucalyptus offers a unique touch.

Accents

But it’s not just flowers and greenery that make a Thanksgiving centerpiece beautiful; there’s plenty of accents and smaller items that can add a unique touch! Things like fall leaves, lotus pods, pinecones, and other dried elements give a centerpiece a rustic feel. You could even include a little pumpkin or an acorn squash for that fall look!

Size

Size is an important factor in choosing your centerpiece. A long and low centerpiece compliments any table and makes it easy for your guests to see over it to talk to each other. You could also choose some taller arrangements to place on a sideboard or buffet table. And if you have a more high-end event planned, you could order some tall centerpieces that your guests can see underneath!

When you’re ready to order a Thanksgiving centerpiece or arrangement, just give us a call!

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Dahlias

To me, there is no flower more “fall” than a dahlia! These beautiful, round blooms come in a wide variety of colors from pale whites and creams to deep, rich burgundies! Dahlias are sure to add a unique touch to any arrangement when used as a focal flower.

Celosia

There are three varieties of celosia–coxcomb, plume, and spicata–and each is well-loved here at Fantasy Florist! The wide variation in shape and color makes celosia a versatile choice for arrangements, and it can be used for almost any occasion! 

Marigolds

The namesake golden color of marigolds is the perfect complement to a warm, rich fall color scheme! These flowers add a touch of brightness and contrast to the deep reds and browns that herald the fall. They also have a unique fragrance!

Strawflower

If you’re looking for a more unique fall filler, strawflower is one of our favorites! This small flower comes in a wide array of colors and hues, and its distinct texture helps it stand out among the autumn blooms. It’s a natural complement to other fall flowers!

Zinnias

Last in the alphabet but certainly not least, the zinnia is a fantastic flower to add to any fall arrangement! Like the dahlia, it comes in many colors, but it’s smaller and more rounded. It’s well suited to arrangements both big and small!

If these flowers are calling your name, then good news! All of these fall flowers are available from local farms through our partnership with Old Dominion Flower Cooperative. Whether it’s an autumn birthday, a back-to-school gift, or just because you love the fall, order your autumnal arrangement today!

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Single-use plastics are notoriously bad for not only our wildlife and the environment, they are bad for anyone that consumes the wildlife that ingest these plastics. We’ve eliminated one more single-use plastic from our shop, and we’re recycling in the process! Have you ever turned a rose upside-down to preserve it and noticed just how strong the stem becomes when it’s dried? We noticed that too!

It takes a bit of effort and vigilance, but the environment is so worth each sustainable step we can take. We often cut our long stem rose stems to accommodate shorter arrangements or remove them altogether for rose petal orders. Instead of throwing them away, we are saving these stems, drying them, and making slits at one end to hold the envelopes that carry message cards and care instructions.

The next time you receive an arrangement from us, you can compost the sustainable card holder right along with the flowers and greenery!

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Before you give us a call, you’ll want to gather some information, and then the corsage or boutonniere designs itself!

Wrist or Pin-on Corsage?

Most people prefer wrist corsages, but you’ll sometimes find your grandmother prefers a pin-on corsage because that is what she is used to. Wrist corsages are nice because they go with any kind of dress or material. If the dress is strapless or has spaghetti straps, a wrist corsage is perfect because you don’t have to worry about where to pin the corsage. If the dress is made out of a fabric that isn’t sturdy enough to support the weight of a pin-on corsage, then a wrist corsage is perfect.

We have several different wristlet options to accommodate different sized wrists. Just let us know if your wrist is particular petite. You can even come in to try on the wristlets.

Color Palate

Are you trying to match a dress or a suit? Is this for a wedding so you want to coordinate with the wedding flowers? Are there school colors you want to include? For the most part, each element of the corsage or boutonniere can be the color of your choosing from the flowers, to the smaller supporting flowers, to the greenery, and finally the ribbon.

What kind of flower?

Roses are the most popular. For a corsage, we use several spray roses instead of the larger full-size rose in order to accommodate a woman’s smaller wrist size. Roses come in a variety of colors including the standard white, red, and light pink. But they also come in yellow, peach, lavender, burgundy, and orange. If you’re interested in one of the specialty colors, just call us about a week in advance so we are able to order the flowers for you.

If you want something a little more unusual, there are many other flowers that make beautiful corsages and boutonnieres. Orchids lend an exotic look and come in unusual colors such as the larger cymbidium orchid…

…or the smaller dendrobium orchid. Ranunculus offers a delicate look with gradations of color that are unpredictable and whimsical.

Calla lilies bring a classic sophisticated look and come in white, yellow, mango, pink/light purple, and a dark eggplant purple.

Additions

A traditional corsage and boutonniere is comprised of roses, baby’s breath, bakers fern, and a ribbon. We love requests for original designs. Some fun small flower additions are wax flower, solidago, astilbe, and statice.

Greenery comes in lots of different tones and textures including eucalyptus, myrtle, ruscus, variegated pittosporum, or even hypericum berries.

Ribbon

Most people include ribbon, but you don’t have to. Ribbon has so many characteristics including width, sheer or solid, matte or sparkly, or you can even choose two different ribbons.

You can certainly place your order over the phone. But if you’d like something more unique, you might consider visiting the shop. We have a huge selection of ribbon if you want to match fabric or just see the different colors and textures that are available. You’d be surprised at how many shades of blue there are! We can also pull various elements together like flowers, greenery, and ribbon so you get a feel for what the finished product will look like.

Whatever your needs are for corsages and boutonnieres, we’re here to help!

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There are a few flowers that actually start blooming before spring. Anemones, amaryllis, and ranunculus are all winter flowers, and all three stay vibrant in the spring. Hellebores, an evergreen plant, also blooms during March, and daffodils and poppies both start waking up around this time. 

As we drift later into April and the weather warms up, you’ll start to see some garden favorites! Bleeding hearts, bluebells, and bachelor buttons bring unique touches to arrangements, and they flourish in April. For a very short time this month–only a week or two–lilacs also blossom. And if there’s one flower that symbolizes spring, it’s tulips! April brings a vast variety of tulips to the shop, and each one is uniquely beautiful!

After winter, early spring flowers are truly Mother Nature’s gift to us. Our Spring Designer’s Choice is a perfect way to enjoy this gift!

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Budget

The first question we’ll ask is what your budget is. Once we know your budget, we can guide you to the appropriate flowers that will create the look and feel you would like. Additionally, you might choose to prioritize the elements that are most important to you. Are having peonies in your bouquet more important than having flowers decorating the church pews? While nothing is set in stone until we’re within a month of your big day, knowing what budget you’d like to target will help us offer appropriate suggestions and guidance.

Inspiration

Oftentimes, people will ask us to send them photos of bride’s bouquets. The reality is that we can create any kind of bouquet that you would like. We have endless examples! It really helps us narrow down examples if you send us photos or a Pinterest board that shows the style(s) you like. In addition, these photos will help us determine the price of the bouquet!

Shape

When it comes to bride’s bouquets, there are three major shapes that we work with. The first is round and compact, often looking like a dome. Its opposite is a teardrop or cascading bouquet, a looser shape with trailing flowers and/or greenery. Finally, in the middle of those two is an open and natural bouquet with a more amorphous shape. Below are examples of each shape.

A round bouquet, a cascading bouquet, and an open bouquet.

Color Palette

Something else that’s important to consider is the colors of your bouquet. Whether you’re looking for a monochromatic bouquet or one that includes all the colors of the rainbow, we want to match the colors you’re looking for as closely as possible. Flowers come in all different colors and shades, so the more specific you can be, the better. And if you have a photo of the specific shade you want us to match, that helps us even more!

Flowers

The fun part of the bouquet is the flowers! Do you want just one kind of flower, a mixture of textures and layers, or a combination of flowers that all have the same look and feel? Many flowers such as roses and sunflowers are available year-round at fairly consistent prices. Other flowers such as peonies and dahlias are seasonal. While we might be able to procure them out-of-season, they are often prohibitively expensive. In this case, we are happy to suggest budget-friendly alternatives that offers a similar look without the strain on your wallet!

Greenery and Natural Elements

The last consideration is greenery and natural elements. While neither are a necessity for a bouquet, it can add a natural look as well as contrast to the flowers. Seeded eucalyptus is a popular greenery right now. Other kinds of greenery include (but not limited to!) ruscus, myrtle, green pennycress, bupleurum, and bear grass. Some brides love to add other natural elements for fun texture and variety. Thistle, berries, lotus seed pods, pine cones, safari sunset, are just some of the natural elements we have incorporated into beautiful bride’s bouquets.

Once you’ve considered all these points, you’re ready to order! Just give us a call or visit us in-store, and we’ll create the perfect bride’s bouquet just for you.

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The flowers in Breath of the Wild largely serve as materials used for boosting Link’s abilities or upgrading his armor. They’re found all across Hyrule, though they vary considerably in scarcity and value. Today, I’d like to look at six of these flowers and compare them to their real-world counterparts, if any. Some are a little more fantastical than others! 

Starting off easy, there are two flowers in the game that have very obvious real-world counterparts: swift violets and mighty thistles. Swift violets, used for boosting speed, closely resemble…well, violets. On the other hand, attack-boosting mighty thistles don’t look exactly like our thistles. While they look somewhat like a closed thistle bud, the bright orange color and sharp, pointy tip is distinctly out of this world. 

Armoranths, ingested for a defense boost, are a little more obscure. The round, compact bulbs in the game look nothing like draping amaranthus. However, they look a lot like gomphrena (albeit a bit larger,) and another name for gomphrena is globe amaranth. Unlike armoranths, gomphrena comes in quite a few different colors, and while it’s theoretically edible, the texture of the flowers makes them better suited for tea.

Blue nightshade, used to help Link move quietly and stealthily, is a bit of a misnomer. While both blue nightshade and real-world nightshade have drooping buds, real-world nightshade is more often found in purple and white with a distinct, spiky shape to its petals. Blue nightshade more closely resembles a lily of the valley with the color of a bluebell. Notably, however, neither flower glows in the dark like blue nightshade does in-game.

Safflina, which comes in three varieties and increases Link’s resistance to different elements, was difficult to identify. The plant has a name that reminds me of safflower or saffron. However, neither flower looks like any type of safflina; safflower is a short, thistle-like flower, and saffron’s flowers are large and wide, not tall and thin. Safflina more closely resembles salvia in both its shape and the colors it’s found in. The names are similar, but just different enough to throw you for a loop!

Finally, perhaps the most important flower in Breath of the Wild is the silent princess. It is one of the most scarce materials in the game, only found in certain remote locations on the map. It also carries symbolic weight, representing the one and only Princess Zelda and appearing in the game’s logo. The five-pointed bloom resembles nightshade, ironically more than blue nightshade does. The coloration of the plant is reminiscent of a stargazer lily, albeit blue instead of pink. Its closest match in both color and shape is columbine. It’s perhaps fitting that a flower so magical and special in the world of Hyrule has no exact match to be found in our own world. 

Breath of the Wild has so many little details to create this world, and the variety of plants and flowers you can pick up is just one of them. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is scheduled for release on May 12th, 2023 with, hopefully, even more Hylian wildflowers. In the meantime, if you’d like a bouquet of not-quite-Hylian wildflowers, just give us a call!

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