April 2012

1800Flowers Celebrates Take Your Child to Work Day 2012!

Turning Young Seedlings into Blossoming Entrepreneurs

Thursday, April 26, 2012 was Take Your Child to Work Day and a dozen beaming young sprouts arrived bright and early to the 1800FLOWERS.COM corporate headquarters, anxious to participate in the company’s annual celebration!

Greeted by the 1800FLOWERS CEO and President Jim and Chris McCann, along with the human resources team, the youngsters received words of wisdom from the company founders, who then sent the mini entrepreneurs on their day long journey into the workforce!

Take Your Child to Work Day at 1800Flowers 2012 — Jim McCann, CEO & Chris McCann, President, provide the kids with words of wisdom.

Take Your Child to Work Day is a nationally recognized educational program aimed at teaching children more about the workforce in general, specifically where their parents, mentors, and idols work each day. Every year, on the fourth Thursday of April, employers are encouraged by the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Foundation to open their doors to the children of their employees in their communities. In honor is its 20^th anniversary, the foundation deemed “Build Opportunity: 20 Years of Education, Empowerment, Experience,” as the 2012 theme.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM loves to continiously help bring this vision to life, inviting the children of our employees to get hands-on work experience as they learn more about our company and where their role models, their mothers or fathers, work on a daily basis. After The day commenced with introductions and a photo opportunity with Jim & Chris McCann in the on-site retail store, the kids looked forward to a packed and enlightening schedule.

Take Your Child to Work Day - Teaching the Kids About Social Media — The Take Your Child to Work Day kids learn about social media.

In the later morning the children were invited to participate in a social media discussion, led by Joe Macaluso and Josh Gordon of the Interative Marketing department.Together, they explained to the importance of social media and how it benefits the company. Through the use of graphs and other visuals, Josh and Joe showed that social media is more than just fun and games. They learned how 1800Flowers use social media sites to showcase new and existing products, engage with customers, and receive key performance metrics such as comments, “likes” and “shares.”

Next, the children were escorted on a company tour of the building, where they were introduced to different departments from Merchandising to Marketing to get a well rounded view of the different divisions and respective responsibilities that make up 1800Flowers.

After a quick pizza break, our blossoming businesspersons participated in an anti-bullying discussion and were assigned group projects to present to their parents, executing real world skills!

take your child to work day flower arrangements — The Take Your Child to Work Day kids arrange Mother’s Day flowers!

The day concluded with a floral arrangement class led by Professional Floral Designer Phillip DeVito, who helped the children arrange Mother’s Day flowers for an early Mother’s Day gift to give to their moms! Teaching the kids about delivering smiles, which is what 1800Flowers does best, by giving flowers and gifts is a priceless lesson, not to mention fun!

Over 37 million Americans at 3.5 million companies participated in ‘Take Your Child to Work Day’ (TYCWD) this year. 1800FLOWERS.COM continues to focus on social responsibility and support the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Foundation’s goal of “Education, Empowerment, Experience,” enlightening the community’s young entrepreneurs through this program. The opportunity to motivate and encourage America’s youth to develop a positive work ethic is one we look forward to every year!

Flowers in Art: Sargent’s “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose”

Two little girls stand in a garden at dusk, intently lighting the candles in Chinese lanterns; lilies tower over them. Everything glows in this painting: the white dresses on the girls, the girls’ faces, the lanterns—and the lilies.

This is Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, one of John Singer Sargent’s most beloved works. The title comes from a popular song in England of the 1880s, when the artist spent two summers working on the painting.

A garden scene might seem like an unlikely subject for a man best known for his portraits of Gilded Age society figures, portraits that now hang in museums from San Francisco to London, as well as in ducal mansions in Britain. (Though a closer looks reveals many flowers in those portraits, tucked into hats and hair and corsages and nosegays, so obviously he got plenty of practice.)

But in 1884, Sargent was struggling to find a place in the art world. His now famous painting Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau) had been savaged by the Paris art critics, and the young man, born in America and reared in Europe, found few commissions. He closed his Paris studio and began working in London, hoping for greater success there—but British critics were equally harsh. (Interestingly enough, one complained bitterly about the “crudity of the carnations” in an 1884 portrait.) However, he had a number of friends, and in 1885 he joined a colony of artists—painters and writers—summering in the Cotswolds, in a village about a dozen miles from Stratford: Novelist Henry James was one of their number, as was poet and art critic Edmund Grosse; so was portraitist Frank David Millet and illustrator Frederick Barnard and his wife, Alice Faraday Barnard, and their two daughters. It was a happy group by all accounts.

Sargent spent the summer dashing off oil sketches of everything he saw, painting in a very nearly Impressionist style. One of those sketches was of two children in a garden, standing among towering lilies. Sargent revisited the idea the following summer, replacing the boy and girl in the preliminary study with the two Barnard girls, Dorothy and Polly, who were seven and eleven at the time.

Regardless of the delicacy and freshness of the painting, the final work was anything but dashed off. Sargent did study after study for it, and then toiled away on the painting itself for two successive summers. He had only a few minutes at dusk each day when the light was exactly right, so his time was extremely limited. The scene was carefully set, and as the magic moment neared, his subjects would take their places and he would paint feverishly. As summer became fall in 1885, the roses withered and were replaced by wax ones wired to the bare shrubs, and paper lilies stood in for real ones. Finally, in November, the work had to be set aside for another season.

He finished Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose in the summer of 1886. The painting proved a turning point in his career. London art critics who had scorned his work praised Carnation, Lily when it was exhibited in 1887 at the Royal Academy; it was purchased almost immediately for the Tate Gallery in London, where it hangs to this day. Within five years Sargent was the leading portraitist of his day, painting lords and ladies, industrialists and presidents. But every summer he abandoned the studio and headed for the outdoors, where his subjects were family and friends and the natural world. Among those lifelong friends were Alice Faraday Barnard and her daughters (Frederick Barnard died tragically in a fire in 1896), and the family often accompanied him on painting vacations.

Rose Care: How to Save Roses with ‘Bent Necks’

From tulips to chrysanthemums, our series “The Language of Flowers” explores everything from fresh flower care tips to flower symbolism and meaning. In this article, expert florist Jerry Rosalia shows you how to save roses that begin to droop, aka develop a “bent neck.”

You’ve recently receive a beautiful bouquet of roses in a vase, but after a few days, one of the roses starts to droop, otherwise known as develops “bent neck.” If this happens to you, don’t fret; you can straighten that rose so it’s standing upright and at attention in no time.

Here, expert florist Jerry Rosalia teaches you how to save roses with bent necks in four easy steps.

How to Save Roses with Bent Necks: Roses in a Vase

Remove the rose from the arrangement.
Wrap the rose tightly in wet newspaper, leaving the stem protruding. (The newspaper helps keep the head of the rose straight, which will aid it in being hydrated.)
Cut the drooping rose under water but not under running water from a tap (which is aerated).
Place the rose in a container filled with warm water.

Within a few hours, the air will have passed out of the neck of the rose and the flower will be drinking water again. You’re welcome!

Petal Talk Chats with Woburn, Massachusetts Florist Lisa Sandoe

Local florist Lisa Sandoe has 1800Flowers flower shops in Woburn and Melrose, Massachusetts and has been in the floral business for over 25 years.

Lisa did a question and answer session to talk about her flowers experience, local city, favorite flower seasons and most unique arrangements.

How did you get into the flower business and what do you love best about being a florist?
I got into the floral business about 25 years ago. My friend got me a job at the flower shop that she worked at, part time, temporary employment, until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. The job fit me like a glove. I was hired to answer phones, water plants, make displays, clean up etc. Within the first year I learned to design. My friend who managed the shop left, and I was promoted to manager.

What are your favorite flowers?
I love the season of the flowers, like the seasons of New England. Winter with its fragrant winter greens, like balsam, pine and boxwood, has a totally different feeling compared to say spring with all of the bulbs, iris, daffodils etc. The flower seasons, like New England seasons, are in my opinion breathtaking.

Can you tell us a little bit about Woburn, Massachusetts? What is your favorite thing about living there?
I have lived in New England all of my life, I grew up in Lexington, Mass (where it all started) then moved to Woburn, right next door for 16 years. Woburn is where I opened my first flower shop, and where it remains today. Melrose is where I opened my first beautiful retail 1800flower shop, also where it remains today, changing like the seasons.

What has been the most rewarding experience during your florist tenure?
For so many years, being a local florist has become a huge part of who I am and who my friends are. I have had customers who have stuck around since I first opened my doors, people who buy flowers from me for special occasions, those who buy flowers much more frequently, business acquaintances who have me decorate for their Christmas parties and send flowers for office promotions year after year. And then there are those, who believe it or not, are some of my favorite, those who stop by often to say “hi,” or tell me about the terrible flowers they saw at an event that another florist did. They will stop by and give me homemade cookies or breads at Christmastime. Although, I almost never make much of a profit from these long time customers, they lift me up and make me realize that I have become very much part of my community.

What is the weirdest thing you have seen or experienced during your floral career?
Since I have fulfilled so many odd floral requests, the weird has become normal-ish. Last week for example, the Manager at my Melrose location was asked by one of her good long-time customers to make an easel spray for a family member that looked like a white tiger, which she did. I saw it and it did look just like a white tiger’s face with black pipe cleaners to line the eyes and nose – quite a work of art actually. But, again I didn’t even think to take a picture, because we do odd things all the time with flowers. I think however, the oddest thing we had to do, even though we tried to tell the sender that it would be very unusual, was to write ” bomb squad ” across the #40 banner of the funeral spray in large letters. The deceased was on the bomb squad years prior to her death, and although what’s usually written on any funeral banner is who the deceased was to the sender of the flowers, they insisted we write “Bomb Squad ” across the banner, since members of the bomb squad were sending the flowers. Oh, well…

What is your favorite floral occasion?
I don’t think I have a favorite floral occasion. That’s a bit like asking what a New Englander’s favorite season is, they all have good points. I think that it’s the people that I am arranging flowers with and the customers I am doing the work for that make each event my favorite at the time, it’s always changing.

In the Massachusetts area? Visit Lisa’s Massachusetts’ flower shops:
Melrose Wakefield Florist
1147 Main Street
Melrose, MA 02176
(781)662-6879
Google Map for Directions
melrosewakefieldflorist.com

Woburn’s Florist & Gift Shop
22-9 Prospect St.
Woburn, MA 01801
(781)932-3351
Google Map for Directions
woburnsfloristandgift.com

How to Choose Wedding Flowers for Your Special Day

Choosing wedding flowers is a big decision! In addition to selecting the color and types of flowers, you have to decide how many flowers you want to use, whether you want to include flowers in your centerpieces and whether to go over the top or stick with simple floral arrangements.

When it comes to choosing wedding flowers you may want to consider:

* The season you’ll be married in
* The location of your wedding ceremony and reception
* Your wedding color scheme and theme
* Your wedding decorations budget

Matching Seasonal Flowers to Fit Your Wedding Season

The season you’re married in may dictate the color, the type of flowers chosen and the number of flowers you use. During a fall or winter wedding, you may decide to go heavy on seasonal flowers and natural accents such as dried grasses or baby’s breath, but a spring or summer wedding may call for opulent blooms and tropical splashes of color. While white is always a popular winter wedding color, adding in bold touches can be unexpected and breathtaking. Holiday wedding bouquets that include bold crimson to softer baby blue and white flowers can be a stunning choice. If your wedding is later in the winter floral arrangements in cool blue and ivory tones are understated hint that spring is near.

Matching Wedding Flowers to Your Wedding Venue
Whether your wedding will take place indoors or outside may affect your choice of wedding flowers. A banquet hall is often like a blank canvas that can require large, striking blooms that cascade over the wedding centerpieces and fill the space with beautiful colors and aromas. If you’re getting married in a garden, perhaps you’ll choose your favorite wildflower as the showstopper and add a few different blooms to the corsages, bridesmaid bouquets and boutonnieres.

Wedding Flower Color Ideas
Regardless of the season and the location, you may have your heart set on a particular color scheme for your wedding. Remember, however, that flowers grow naturally in a variety of colors. Instead of trying to match the flowers to the exact colors and tones of your bridesmaids’ dresses, consider selecting complementary or contrasting colors for the flower arrangements.

Wedding Flower Budget Ideas
If your budget is preventing you from selecting the type of flower you have your heart set on, think about ordering the bridal bouquet in your favorite flower but using a variety of less expensive flowers in similar colors for the bridesmaids’ bouquets and the party centerpieces.