Petal Talk

Administrative Professionals Day 2013 is Wednesday, April 24.

1800Flowers.com “Thanks-A-Latte”

Most businesses require a lot of time and effort from any number of employees in order to function at their best, all the time. Administrative Professionals Day is a celebration of the amazing people that help us do our jobs well from day to day. Every third week in April, we show our appreciation and reward the people that work closely with us by giving special gifts or doing thoughtful things for our fellow workers. If you are looking for gift ideas for Administrative Professionals Day, below are some simple ways to show how important your working peers are to you! Continue reading →

Spice up Your Easter Egg Hunt With These Helpful Tips

The hunt is on! This weekend, tracking down those Easter eggs doesn’t have to be a plain old game of hide-and-seek. Check out these creative Easter egg hunt ideas and show your kids a hopping good time!

Use Flower Trails

Mark a starting point in the middle of your yard. Using Easter flowers, create multiple trails on the grass that lead from the starting point to each hidden egg. Each individual trail is made with a specific color flower. To make things even more exciting, make a few “fake” trails that lead the kids away from the eggs, with some clues at the end of the trail explaining how to get back on track. The kids have to follow the flowers to find the eggs, and whoever gets the most eggs wins! The best part is that the kids can collect the flowers as they follow each trail, so they’ll have a basket full of candy and blooms when the game is over.

Go Candy-less

Candy doesn’t have to be the only prize for your Easter egg hunt. Fill those plastic eggs with something a little bit more healthy and fun. Here are some suggestions:

• Money or loose change
• Stickers
• Flower seeds
• Coupons that can be redeemed for fun activities (like a sleepover)
• Miniature toys or trinkets, like Squinkies or toy cars
• Hair accessories, mini nail polish or lip gloss for girls
• Small magnets
• Key chains
• Bouncy balls
• Plastic animals
• Silly Putty
• Costume jewelry
• Movie tickets
• Gift certificates

Glow in the Dark

Fill up plastic Easter eggs with glow sticks and hide them around your backyard. Once the sun goes down, you’re ready for a neon-themed Easter party!

Solve the Puzzle

Print out a photo of the grand prize for your Easter egg hunt. Cut out the paper into small puzzle pieces and put each piece into a plastic egg. Have the kids hunt for all the eggs and put the puzzle pieces together to find out what they win.

Get Color-Coordinated

Assign a color to each child, and then have each kid find all of the eggs in their specific color. Hide an equal amount of eggs for each color so everyone gets the same amount of prizes. Everyone’s a winner!

Find the Treasure

Draw a map of your yard and mark your egg hiding spots with an “X.” Have the kids dress up like pirates and use the map to find the hidden booty.
Continue reading →

Easter is almost here, and there’s only one flower that can really capture the sacred spirit of the holiday: the Easter lily! The pure white color of this blossom has long symbolized the purity, hope and new life of spring, and its beautiful trumpet shape makes it the perfect herald for the fresh new season. So it’s no wonder it’s become one of the most popular blooms to decorate homes and churches with during this time of year. But how did this pretty little flower come to be associated with (and even named after) Easter? Here’s the full history of the Easter lily, for you to read while you dress up your home in its Sunday best!

How the Easter Lily Came to the U.S.

The Easter lily was officially discovered in 1777 by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. After its discovery, the flower made its way to England in 1819 and then arrived at Bermuda in the mid-1800s. It was then named the “Bermuda lily,” but its name was eventually changed to “Easter lily” when the spring-blooming flower was brought to Philadelphia and popularized there as an Easter blossom. A virus destroyed the Easter lily’s production on the island of Bermuda, making Japan the flower’s largest producer once again.

It wasn’t until World War I that the Easter lily started being produced in the United States. When soldier Louis Houghton first saw the flower, he was so captivated by it that he brought a suitcase full of bulbs back to his home state of Oregon in 1919. Houghton started handing out the lilies to his friends, who also happened to be horticulture experts.

As a result, large-scale production of the flower spread across the West Coast of the U.S., and by 1945 more than 1,000 growers in Oregon and California were producing the bulbs, earning the region the title of “Easter Lily Capitol of the World.” Today, Oregon and California grow 95 percent of all Easter lilies. Easter lilies are now one of the most popular potted plants in the U.S., ranking with poinsettias, mums and azaleas. Continue reading →

When Easter hops along, kids of all ages look forward to one thing the most: getting a beautiful Easter basket stuffed with Easter eggs, chocolate, candy, toys and more. Today, these little bundles of Easter treats aren’t just a simple tradition; they’ve become an essential part of welcoming spring all across the country. In fact, according to the National Confectioners Association, 80 percent of adults plan on giving their children Easter baskets this year.

You probably already know exactly what your little ones want in their baskets, but do you know how this custom got started? Read on to learn all about the history of Easter baskets, and share it with your kids as they unwrap their springtime goodies!

The First Easter Basket

The Easter basket we know today has a mixed history: Over time, it’s been influenced by folklore and religion. The earliest appearance of the basket has been traced back almost 1,000 years ago.

Since ancient times, spring has been considered the season of new life and fresh beginnings. In 13^th-century pre-Christian Germany, people believed in multiple gods and goddesses, including Eostra, the goddess of spring and fertility. Her symbol was the rabbit (back then, the rabbit was known as an emblem of fertility), and legend has it that she carried a basket full of eggs as a sign of life and rebirth. Every spring, baskets of seedlings were brought to her temple as an offering in exchange for healthy crops and a good harvest.

Eventually, the story of Eostra evolved into the German myth of the “Osterhase,” or the “Easter hare”—a white hare that would bring colored eggs to good children on Easter. By the 18^th century, German settlers introduced the tradition of the Easter hare to the United States. And just like that, the modern traditions of the Easter basket, Easter eggs and the Easter bunny were born! Continue reading →