FLOWERS for LOVE + RESISTANCE for VALENTINE'S DAY

Happy Valentine's Day dear everyones! 

Yes, it has been a while and I know we need to do some serious catching up! We will get to that. However, it is with great pleasure that I present to you :

WILDFLOWERS FOR RESISTANCE !

wild-crafted bouquets + blooming branches available for pick-up at:

COOKBOOK Market 

1549 Echo Park Blvd.

8am - 8pm

- OR -

DUNE (in Atwater)

3143 Glendale Blvd.

10am - 9pm

ALL PROCEEDS will go to support the tribes at Standing Rock. In solidarity we stand together strongly. These flowers were hand-picked by me while on nature walks, purchased from farm stands from two farmer's markets that confirmed they were pesticide-free, and the blooming branches I got from my (only) trusted flower vendor at the Flower Mart. These flowers have integrity, vibrations, love, strength and most of all the power to send a message of action over words. Win-win! 

From my heart to yours, Happy Valentine's Day!

xx Lili

Motel 6 Flowers / AKA Two Hundred Dahlias

MOTEL 6 Wildflowers / 35MM

We had a big wedding in Santa Ynez that required us to stay up there. We checked into a Motel 6 to save on costs and to add to the charm of an already trying wedding (the last time I stayed at one was when I was quite young so strangely fulfilling a moment of nostalgia for me). It was really, really hot which adds to the stress because time management becomes crucial. The last thing you want is to have wilted flowers or worst, dead flowers. Especially if those flowers are dahlias. Two hundred dahlias. Two hundred star-flowers dahlias. The front-and-center showpieces. So we did what any normal florist would do: we rented them a room!  

We single-handedly transformed the motel into a wildflower workshop! Slowly overtaking the room itself, flowers started to spill out onto the hallway, lining the walls, down the staircases while we used the tops of old AC units to the adjacent rooms for creating arrangements. All this while the delicate dahlias sat underneath the cranked flow of the air conditioner, sipping cool water to their hearts content and letting their stems splash around in the clear water underneath them. I was so delighted that I had my Canon F1 with me to capture this. In the midst of the craziness of processing, arranging, misting, and pleasing all the flowers, something started happening to the otherwise still, stagnant air that was there when we first arrived. Transformation. Elegance and grace started to creep in while jasmine fragrance filled the air of our flower sphere. The magic is real. What flowers can do to a space is downright sensational. What they did to that Motel 6 was utterly transcendental.  

So happy to get to share some of these images with you from that memorable day. And major thanks to my team: Alana + Seana, I could not have done it without you both!

what has been going on at the atelier...

It really seems like the month of October has flown by! I certainly did a shoddy job of posting and keeping you in the loop, didn't I? But I trust that you know that it's been a busy, busy past month and a half. I thought a nice little visual recap could give you some insight as to what we have been doing at the Atelier Tigers to Lilies. I feel a lot of gratitude for all of the work that has poured in. Although it has kept me away from the computer and from most of my multimedia (hello instagram, remember me?) I certainly have felt the gratification that comes from working with my hands. At the end of the day, this is what always helps me sleep best - knowing that I have used my hands and spirit to have created something that is going to leave an imprint on someone.

You can always keep an eye on current TTL work by checking out my tumblr, tigrestolilies

xx thank you dear readers for staying with me xx