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Courtney and I used to work together at Wilton and she actually used to live in my neighborhood too! We were introduced to each other by the fabulous makeup artist, Cynthia Sally, who actually did Courtney’s wedding day make up…and she looked so gorgeous!

Courtney’s bouquet was a total stunner. It was a huge, round, full mix of magenta and fuchsia peonies, purple hydrangea, eggplant mini callas, green cymbidium orchids, jaguar spotted pink mokara orchids, and purple anemones. The girls carried bouquets of white hydrangea, bi-color cream and purple mini callas, jaguar spotted mokara orchids, green and Bombay dendrobium orchids, and green hypericum berries. Courtney and her sister also had little pink butterfly brooch in honor of their mother in each of their bouquets. The flower girls carried pomanders made of purple hydrangea with lime green satin handles. For the guys, Andrew wore a double eggplant calla bout, Courtney’s son Jaiden wore a single eggplant calla, and the rest of the guys wore bi-color cream callas with purple throats. The corsages were made with callas and orchids. Everything coordinated perfectly.

For the ceremony, we did white hydrangea hung from every-other chair with eggplant ribbon and two altarpieces on pillars. The ceremony was given by Officiant Terry Brady, who is an awesome officiant and member of Chic Wed Pros (a wedding group I am a co-creator/editor and member of.)

For the cocktail hour, we created 3 lime-lined square vases with purple hydrangea in them for the cabaret tables and 3 clusters of candles surrounded by petals and bling for the highboy tables. We also decorated the photo booth and guest book tables with bling and petals. The escort card table was the main focal point and was a large manzanita tree with a base covered in assorted flowers with orchids, bling and votives hanging from the branches. I made Chicago-themed escort cards for the guests that matched the Chicago-themed table numbers I created for the reception. Courtney and Andrew also had a fun photo booth from one of my favorite photo booth companies, Photo Booth Express. They have great booths and awesome design (I actually do work freelance work for them!)

At the reception, we did vases for the bouquets on the sweetheart table and reused the flower girl pomanders on the back of the bride and groom chairs. The altarpieces framed the table and it looked just perfect. We did 2 different styles for the centerpieces: one was a trio of submerged cylinders with callas and orchids and floating candles at top and the other was a cylinder vase with a bunch of tall callas wrapped in eggplant satin and bear grass wisps in the bottom with a submersible purple LED light in the bottom. They also rented my rectangle gift card holder with monogram and its counterpart-the Wishes and Advice vase. Everything looked FABULOUS!

I loved working with my friend and former co-worker and neighbor Courtney! She is awesome! I am so happy for her and Andrew. I know they are going to have a lifetime of happiness! Congrats you two!

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I felt that a typical thank you card would not be enough. We were so inspired by the garden and really enjoyed meeting Pearl that I wanted to make something memorable, and share my talents with him as he so happily shared his with us. So I drew a card for him with some trees and shrubs making the shape of “Thank” and “You” on the front cover with personalized messages from Matt and I inside. I also through in a B&W image of Pearl posing with us. Now hopefully he will always remember the nice couple from Chicago. Yeah, we tell people we are from Chicago when we are out of state. It is easier than saying “Naperville, a western suburb of Chicago”…that gets old.

If you want to read more about Pearl Fryar’s Topiary Garden, I recently blogged about it.

Here is another photo of the card I drew.

It was inspired by these trees:

And his house number shrubs:

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A set of postcards of the 2009 Top 12 is available for purchase on the PACE Website. You can also buy other Postcard-themed gift items including past year’s winners on there as well. There are some really cool items! Including “The Mighty Mastadon” which I designed as a vintage-themed promo piece for them a couple years ago.

If you are interested in having a copy of “Treenatomy” which is my piece that placed into the Top 12, let me know. It is my “green” artwork since it dealt with that subject matter and it was made on my computer so there was no waste involved in creating it. Since it is a digital piece, I can reproduce versions of it and mat them for sale. Sizes come in 4″ x 6″, 5″ x 7″ and 8″ x 10″. Please email me to learn more.

Cynthia did my make up for both my Wedding Ceremony and Reception (remember, I had them on separate days). She made me the best version of myself, and with her help (and my talented hairstylist’s) I made Matt’s jaw drop. I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, and she made me that way. I cannot thank her enough!

As a small show of my gratitude, I designed Cynthia’s new logo. She was looking to change the look of her brand, and I gave her a bunch of options. This is what we chose…its clean, its chic and its professional. I love it! And so does she!

She is trying to decide which business card she wants to use. They both are great so she is has a hard choice! I am so glad that I could do something for her.

If anyone is still seeking a wonderful, reasonably priced make-up artist, Cynthia is a fabulous choice! I highly recommend!

Here are a couple photos from our wedding. I cannot believe we’ve been married for nearly a year already! Time flies! P.S. Check out my DREAM BOUQUET! {Made by yours truly}

I have done a lot of portraits of both pets and people (usually babies/children) that were commissioned to be given as gifts. I can do these type of pieces in graphite (pencil), pen & ink or colored pencil and I usually make the drawings 5″ x 7″  or 8″ x 10″ in size. Of course my pricing is totally affordable, too. If you are interested in commissioning a piece (for yourself or to be given as a gift for a birthday, baptism, wedding, Christmas, etc.) please email me! I would love to start another one of these fun projects!

Here is more of my FINE ART Portfolio…

Another helpful site for looking up floral trends, color palettes and availability would be the CCFC’s (California Cut Flower Commission) website. They feature color trend forecasts and flower availability on there.

If you are looking for wedding flower ideas in general, Google Image searching with the correct search terms can get you a lot of ideas, and also looking to photo sites like Flickr and searching the tags by putting in keywords helps. I can say that having a flickr site of my own has helped me to find other florists around the globe and we all share and steal eachother’s ideas! It is nice to view other techniques and methods that are out there for designing beautiful floral creations. Or should I say “Kreations”.

Speaking of Kreations…since people often wonder where the “Kio” part of “Kio Kreations” comes from, I might as well explain that in this informative Blog post. Put simply, Kio is my nickname. I got it in high school art class. Basically, I was annoyed when people spelled my name which is “KRISTEN” this way: “KRISTIN“. So, I started to sign my name on my artwork KRIS10 (basically KRIS and the number 10). Then it got to the point where I just started signing artwork “K 10″ and people interpreted that as “Kio” and the rest is history. I even created a cartoon character that was my alter-ego named “Kio Littlechicken” which is a take off of “Kristen Henschen” (Henschen is German for Small Chicken). My little Kio character later landed herself a daily comic strip in the college newspaper called “Kio’s Kaos” that ran for 2 years so even people at NIU started referring to me as Kio. Now its mostly my immediate family and occasionally my husband who call me Kio. But since its far more unique than my actual name of Kristen, I chose Kio Kreations for my business name 5 years ago. So, long story long…that is where “Kio” originated.

We love making unique, unforgettable floral designs for weddings and events. Our non-floral projects include graphic and product design done locally, nationally and internationally. We have a strong passion for art & design and look forward to taking on your next creative project!