flowers

Need a place to put those Valentine's Day roses? The Camicia Vase is an elegant, but modern, way to showcase a beautiful flower arrangement. The vase consists of two cylindrical tubes, one made of glass and an exterior one made of chromed steel or aluminum. The exterior tube has a cutaway portion that allows you to see through, into the bottom of the vase and, because of the high-quality of the glasswork, it looks as though the water and flower stems are almost floating in place. The vase is 4" in diameter and 11" high. Price: $320.

In chocolates, they gave Candinas, La Maison du Chocolat, Jacques Torres and Norman Love Confections all "excellent" ratings, with West-coast favorite See's Candies coming in close behind with a "very good" rating, along with Godiva and Leonidas. Target's Choxie brand followed with a "good" rating.

For the florists, reliability seemed to present a problem with some vendors. ProFlowers offered selection, value and reliability, but FTD.com, which stocks the Todd Oldham bouquets, sent out the nicest arrangement. CR still recommends going with a local florist, if you can, for best results.

Todd Oldham has a lovely line of Valentine's bouquets exclusively at FTD Florists this year. All of the arrangements are vibrant and young, prompting recipients to take a second glance - which they might not do with the standard bouquet of red roses. More interesting than the flowers themselves are the vases and containers that the come in. Decorated with floral prints and candy hearts, the vases alone are smile-inducing. One arrangement comes in a stainless steel wine goblet, while another is in a martini shaker.

[via styledash]

When we first heard about the existence of the world's tallest roses, with lush blooms sitting on stems that tower well over five feet above the ground, we immediately knew that they would be an in-demand item for Valentine's day. It turns out that the Washington Post thinks so, too. According to their latest article on the subject, "extreme roses" are growing in popularity faster than the flowers are blooming. They are turning up in celebrity homes and some were featured in the Rose Bowl Parade earlier this year.

Be warned, though: as with most excessively large things (SUVs, for example), these roses aren't inexpensive. Organic Bouquet, a company that specializes in the larger than life roses, charges $250 per dozen. On the plus side, they'll make a huge impact on your Valentine and, because the breed of rose is known as "Forever Young," one dozen should last quite a while.

A bouquet of roses on Valentine's Day sends a message, but that message could be anything from "let's be friends" to "I love you." The only sure way to make the message clear is by directly including it with the roses. And in this case, you can actually put the message directly on the long-stemmed Colombian roses directly. From Hammacher Schlemmer, these Personalized Roses are each embossed in gold with your choice of "I love you," "Happy Birthday," and "Happy Valentine's Day." They are sold by the dozen and packed with baby's breath and greens, in your choice of red, white, pink or yellow roses. Price: $80.

Flowers seem to be a fairly standard Valentine's Day gift, one that is so expected that it is actually quite difficult to impress your Valentine with them without going to extremes. Filling up a room with roses could be prohibitively expensive, but the World's Tallest Roses, while still pricey, might make even more of an impression. Just look at how pleased the woman in the picture is to see the roses!

The roses are over five feet tall and are carried exclusively by Organic Bouquet. The roses are imported from Equador, where the combination of sun and volcanic soil allows them to reach such impressive heights. Price for 1 dozen: $250.

[via growabrain]

I keep my extra tapered candles in a drawer, but the idea of putting them into an elegant display as a way of storing them is a good one, especially if you tend to keep candles that are all of the same color, or at least color coordinated. The Tapers With Ismir Vase set includes 24 ivory candles and a lovely handblown glass vase for displaying them. You can even treat the tapers like flowers and change the arrangement to suit the seasons, or remove them to make use of the 8-in. high vase for real flower arrangements. Price: $70.

Anne Gericke specializes in making tiny dioramas in wearable-forms, like necklaces with miniaturized street scenes or as in this case, a very small bouquet of flowers. The White Flower Ring has a diorama of very realistic looking flowers set behind clear glass in a silver setting. Granted, it might not be quite as glamorous as wearing, say, a huge diamond, but the ring will attract attention and compliments by the sheer virtue of how unusual and beautiful it is. It is also more casual than a large jeweled ring, and more appropriate for everyday wear, although the level of detail is more than impressive enough to take it out with formal evening wear. Price: $480.