Shelby + Kyle | Warehouse 109 Wedding | Redmond Digital Media

December 27, 2020

Shelby + Kyle’s wedding at Warehouse 109 was one of our only “sizable” events this year due to the Pandemic– and I put that word “sizable” in quotes because it had around 50 people which was really the highest we got with the # of guests rules this season. Some of the venues had more than 50 guests, split into different rooms. I get it, we are all desperate to work and these guidelines make that very hard. However, since my husband is immunocompromised I was and am fine not catching Covid at a wedding while doing flowers and I fully understand the risks of larger, unmasked groups gathering. It is hard to be on both sides both wanting to work again to survive but also wanting it to be safer before doing so.

Anyways. The results of these smaller weddings were the same as far as my work goes, Kio Kreations still delivered beautiful flowers. Our team was much smaller. Mostly only me doing stuff, Laura helping with a few of the larger wedding orders with me (masked, sitting/standing by our own tables, faced away from each other– it was very interesting but we kept it safe). Liz, Amy, Monica and Kathleen helped with some setups and teardowns as it was hard when 2 clients pushed their weddings to the same weekend– which happened a couple times this summer and fall. I am grateful I had a team who were both willing to still help setup events still while wearing masks so we could be as safe as possible. There is no real need to say this has been a weird year. I don’t stand alone in that statement. We are all there. Not just locally, or even statewide but globally. 2020 for many people totally sucks. I am just glad that some of my couples were able to tie the knot and move forward with their lives albeit with changes made to their celebratory plans in the process. Redmond Digital Media did a great job capturing this beautiful wedding.

Special thanks to Warehouse 109, Redmond Digital Media for their collaboration with this lovely wedding for Shelby + Kyle and congrats to our couple who are now happily married and still got to have a mini celebration with their closest family and friends despite the current Pandemic climate.

Kio at Work Designing with Flowers | True Grace Friendor Feature | Naperville Wedding Florist

August 5, 2016

A few months back I had the pleasure of being photographed for a “friendor” series my friend Grace of True Grace Photography was doing for her blog. The full feature can be seen here on her website…but I have included some of the photos from the feature below. I love that Grace captured virtually every step of my process: the flowers, supplies, container and tools that I use; the way in which I lay out my flowers while I’m designing; the way I place and hold the flowers and foliage as I create a design; AND even some photos of my two little daughters by my side as they often are while I’m working.

Here are some photos showing the process from start to finish… showing a lovely compote design and bouquet completed by the end.

And wanted to finish this post one of my favorite photos of the bunch…Aria is tired of Mommy working too much and it shows! 😉

Thank you Grace for featuring me and my girls as part of your series! We loved working with you and can’t wait to have our family photos taken this fall with you!

Vintage Circus Birthday Party | Colorful Kid’s Birthday Party | Geneva Party Planner Florist

August 26, 2014

Aria’s Vintage Circus 2nd Birthday was held at the perfect location–an old bear cage-turned picnic shelter at Fabyan Park in Geneva, Illinois. Talk about a cool venue! Once the venue was set the creative juices started to flow resulting in a bunch of fabulous Circus Party ideas some of which I’ve never seen before! All of these amazing photos are by Jennifer Kaye Photography.

Key features would include the venue of course–it might be the only park in the world that has an old bear cage that was turned into a picnic shelter! We decorated it to the nines with bunting banners, balloons, signs, posters and lots of circus-themed paraphernalia.

Once we had the venue and theme nailed down, I designed a custom invitation inspired by a vintage circus poster. I used a primary color palette, bold outlines, vintage fonts, banners, dot patterns and distressing techniques to make it look more like the screen-printed signs of yesteryear even though it was all done digitally. I was even able to do an illustration of the birthday girl, “Ringmaster Aria”, that inspired the ringmaster outfit I later sewed for her for the party.

Other highlights would be the vintage ‘circus’ drums, including a huge base drum that was the centerpiece of the main table with some smaller drums repurposed as stands for cakes and cupcakes. There were also a bunch of very successful DIY projects including a light up “A” marquee letter and a handmade paper mache “circus bear” that perfectly matched the bear on the circus poster invitations.

Large banner signs, bunting banners, and smaller signs decorated the inside and outside of the bear cage shelter. Red and white striped tablecloths topped all of the tables along with buckets of peanuts and brightly colored floral arrangements in antique Barnum’s Animal Cracker tins. We had a variety of sweets and treats including cookies with vintage circus art on them (which I painstakingly made myself!), a bunch of varieties of popcorn, peanuts, circus peanuts, cotton candy, saltwater taffy, cupcakes, and oodles of other yummy candies. Picnic-style foods including potato salad, hotdogs, “Acro-brats”, hamburgers and fried chicken rounded out the menu choices and lemonade, juice boxes, soda pop and good ol’ ice water were the beverage offerings. There were also some non-edible “prizes” for the kids that included Play-doh minis and little circus rubber duckies.

Activities and games included “Pin the Nose on the Clown”, “Color-Your-Own Circus Poster”, “Design-Your-Own Clown Hat” and a face makeup area. Many of the kids were turned into clowns or circus animals by their parents. There was also a faux photo booth area in part of the bear cage—with signs that read “Do Not Feed the Animals” and “BEWARE Animals may Bite”. Kids of all ages could be seen standing behind the bars of the cage for a photo op. It was very cute!

The guest-of-honor, “Ringmaster Aria”, wore a handmade ringmaster jacket and red sparkle shoes. She had a small black top hat designed but I ended up wearing it instead as it is very hard to get a 2-year-old to wear anything on their head for very long. I also made a little wooden person cake topper with the exact same outfit on for her birthday cake and she loved it!

Aria’s Vintage Circus 2nd Birthday Party was amazing and everyone LOVED it and had a great time! I was so happy to find a venue that inspired me to create such a magical experience for everyone especially my wonderful daughter!

And below are some photos of some of the details as I was working on them (my apologies for the photos!)
Some of my favorite projects included the wooden cake topper “Ringmaster Aria”, the signs for the candy buffet and the DIY Marquee Letter “A” that I made with the help of my husband!

Circus Ticket-style invitations that I made with custom illustrations of my daughter and some animals!

Just my luck they actually came out with vintage circus poster stamps this summer! How awesome are these?

Below are the maps I made for the invitations!

Here is the outside of the Bear Cage shelter!

More details…
Posters/signage I made

The Ringmaster costume I sewed/designed with hat by RBK Creations.

Cookies I made (baked and cut out the cookies, iced them, and painstakingly applied the wafer paper circus clip art!)

Finished marquee letter lit up; circus posting coloring page; vintage circus drum sign

FORM Event Chicago | Floral Art Show | Naperville Event Florist

April 26, 2014

In April we participated in FORM: Art + Floral which was an awesome exhibition at Room 1520 showcasing a 14 floral designers doing interpretations of 14 pieces of artwork. It was a fun creative challenge and it raised money for a great cause (Snow City Arts). We will definitely do this show again next year too!

Below you can see the poster/invitation I designed as well as the collage mixed media art piece I was assigned and my floral interpretation of it. It was hard to come up with a concept–but most of my idea started with the bird images I saw in the artwork and then I thought of the idea of cutting ti leafs into feathers and my idea (literally) bloomed from there!

Photos by Jennifer Kathryn Photography

Children’s Book Baby Shower | Featured on ON TO BABY! | Naperville Wedding Florist

April 7, 2014

We are SO happy to announce that the beautiful Children’s Book Baby Shower we did for our past couple Missy + Dan is featured on the ON TO BABY blog today! Take a look at how fabulous it is and PLEASE leave a comment on the blogpost, Pin it and share on Facebook!!! We are SOO proud of this one! Make sure to read the full story about this shower on On To Baby today!!!

Vendors:
Flowers, Props, Invitations, Games, Banners, Event Design & Coordination: Kio Kreations
Photography: Hazelton Photography
Venue: Cress Creek Country Club
Cookie Favors: Chris’ Creative Confections
Cupcakes: Chicago Cupcake

So many details! I made banners, table numbers, pockets, game cards and of course beautiful flower arrangements! There were vintage toys, blocks and lots of fun natural materials too…it was sheer perfection!!!

Please enjoy some more amazingness below…and you have to check out Chris’ Creative Confections and Chicago Cupcake. Perfect for showers, parties, weddings–and really any and every event you have!!!

Want to see another beautiful Children’s Book themed baby shower? We did the same theme for MY baby shower almost 2 years ago–it is featured on Hostess with the Mostess here!

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