Tips for A Colorful Thanksgiving

Share the colors of the season with family, friends and colleagues this year by sending a festive bouquet of flowers in some of the holiday’s most brilliant and beautiful hues. And don’t forget to order fresh flower arrangements to make the occasion even more special! Your family and guests will be blown away by our Autumn Iridescence, Bright Autumn and Thanksgiving Centerpiece. Plus, we have lots more fall-themed arrangements to choose from.

 

There are lots of other ways you can add a splash of color to your Thanksgiving celebration this year. Get the family involved in arts and crafts projects perfect for making your holiday and your home more vibrant this Thanksgiving, and for fostering a sense of togetherness and family fun.

        

1.   Place colorful votive candles in decorative bowls of water to create a romantic and festive mood in your home.
2.  Get the kids involved and have them make colorful place cards for each place setting. It’s a great way to help them get in the holiday spirit and get their creative juices flowing.
3. Pumpkin carving isn’t just for Halloween. Get the entire family to carve or decorate pumpkins and gourds in a variety of sizes for a little holiday fun. They make great decorations for the dining room table, the hearth or anywhere else in your home.
4. Head out into the backyard and use stones, pine cones, leaves and other items found in nature to create festive decorations for the Thanksgiving holiday, or to get an early start on homemade Christmas ornaments.
5. Decorate your end tables and coffee tables with cornucopias filled with squash, pumpkins, berries, walnuts and anything else that you think would be a great addition.
6. Make a special Thanksgiving wreath with family and friends. Start with a wire hanger or a Styrofoam wreath base, and then use artificial greenery, flowers and other decorative elements from your local arts and crafts store to create the look that you want.

We hope you have a wonderful and festive Thanksgiving filled with friends, family, love, good food and lots of great memories. For help with holiday decorating ideas and stunning floral arrangements for your home, give us a call at 1-800-248-2388!

 

Turpins’s Florist delivers locally to Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeak, and Portsmouth, Virginia.   They delivery flowers nationwide and worldwide using FTD and Teleflora wire services for a nominal service charge.  Call us at 1-800-248-2388. 

 

Make the Season Brighter with Fresh Flowers

Make the Season Brighter with Fresh Flowers

 

Nothing makes the holiday season bright like beautiful holiday decorations. Placing holiday wreaths around the home, adorning the hearth, trimming the tree, and decking the halls all help to get us in the holiday spirit and enjoy the most festive time of year. As you’re decorating your home for the holiday season, consider adding fresh flower arrangements to accent your décor. The beauty and aroma of fresh flowers in any area of your home this year are sure to bring not only a sense of celebration and festiveness, but also a sense of tranquility during what can also be one of the most hectic and harried times of the year.

 

There are tons of ways to create a glorious winter garden in your home this holiday season. Vases of fragrant blooms in the living and den area are perfect for setting the mood, especially if you’ll be entertaining lots of guests. Adding an arrangement in your guest room is a memorable gesture to make friends and family feel welcome and special upon their arrival. And it goes without saying that a beautiful centerpiece filled with chrysanthemums, eucalyptus, poms and roses, accented with candles in the colors of the season is the perfect addition to any elegant holiday place setting.

 

However you decide to incorporate fresh flowers into your holiday décor this year, when ordering arrangements, it’s important to keep a few things in mind:

 

Choose Colors That Compliment Your Existing Décor

 

Holiday arrangements come in variety of colors and hues. Discuss your existing home décor, and holiday decorating themes with your florist when you place your order to ensure that the colors and flowers in the arrangement compliment the colors in your home.

 

Get the Most Out of Your Arrangement

 

Since many fresh flower arrangements won’t last for the duration of the holiday season, you may also consider decorating your home with enchanting assorted green plants in festive pots, accented with festive colored ribbon.

 

Order For Special Occasions in Advance

 

The holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year for floral deliveries. When ordering flowers for special events, such as holiday dinners, be sure to order your flowers well in advance to ensure that your order is delivered on time.

 

If you need creative fresh flower ideas to embellish your existing holiday décor, give us a call. Fresh flower arrangements also make great holiday gifts for friends, family and coworkers. And don’t forget our beautiful fruit baskets, bursting with fresh seasonal fruit, flowers, chocolate, cheese and other delectable gourmet treats.

 

Saying “Thanks” to Clients and Business Associates This Holiday Season

 

First recognized by European settlers in America, Thanksgiving has become a rich holiday tradition, marked by great food, parades and football. In many households, before partaking of the Thanksgiving meal, family members and friends hold hands and take turn sharing what they are most thankful for. But Thanksgiving isn’t just a time of reflection among loved ones. It’s also a perfect time to share how thankful you are for your clients, business associates and employees, and show your gratitude for their role in your success over the course of the year.

 

Each year companies spend tons of money on holiday cards and gifts to show their clients and business associates just how much they’ve appreciated working with them. But because so many of these tokens of gratitude and holiday cheer are sent around Christmas and Hanukkah, they often get lost in the shuffle. If you’re looking for a way to make your card or gift truly stand out from the deluge of holiday greetings this year, try sending them around Thanksgiving. After all, what better time to show your appreciation and tell a client, business associate or employee “Thank You” for everything they’ve done? Whether you send a card, gift or a bouquet of fresh flowers, filled with the beautiful colors of autumn and the holiday season, your token of appreciation will arrive far in advance of the rush of holiday greetings, make a lasting impression, and truly resonate with the recipient.

 

Save money on holiday bouquets this fall when you shop at Turpin’s Florist online. Use our Fall Savings Coupon to save on beautiful floral arrangements filled with all of your favorite flowers of the season, including fresh burgundy carnations, gold chrysanthemums, butterscotch poms, and two-tone orange roses. Our arrangements also make great host and hostess gifts to say thanks for all of the time and effort our friends and family will be spending in the kitchen, as they prepare our favorite holiday meals.

 

For more holiday gift ideas, give us a call. We have something perfect for every occasion and for everyone on your list!

 

Visit the Norfolk Botanical Gardens

Norfolk Botanical Garden

 

Who among flower lovers in Norfolk, Chesapeake and even Virginia Beach have not visited the Norfolk Botanical Gardens? And if you haven’t been, now’s the time to go!

 

The Garden is located at 6700 Azalea Garden Road in Norfolk, and you can get driving directions from their website, http://www.norfolkbotanicalgarden.org/. The Garden offers classes on a variety of subjects… such as leaf casting, one stroke casting, making collages…even creating floral designs, wreaths, and table arrangements.

 

As a professional florist, we’re not afraid of the Garden creating competitors for us! When you need a beautifully arranged bouquet of flowers delivered to that special someone, professional florists are the way to go, and there are plenty of such shops in Chesapeake, Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

 

Floral design is much more than simply sticking a bunch of flowers in a vase, as you doubtless know, or will soon realize one you take a class at the Garden! It requires a skilled eye, an imagination, and a knowledge of what flowers and greenery look well together.

 

So let’s get back to discussing what the Botanical Garden has to offer.

 

If you haven’t been to the Garden since June, you’ll want to go before October 12, so that you’ll be able to visit the Mutambo, an outdoor stone sculpture exhibit, imported from Zimbabwe, to honor the 70th Anniversary of the Garden’s creation by 220 local African Americans…way back in 1938. The figures were not sculpted especially for the occasion, but come from Zimbabwe’s famous Shona Sculpture Park.

 

Now that school is in session, you’ll be sure to see some kids their making their field trips, which can add an extra enjoyment to the day if you like seeing young children running around entranced by the nature all about them.

 

There are a dozen gardens in the Garden, called Signature Gardens:

 

Bicentennial Rose Garden

Bristow Butterfly Garden

Hofheimer Camellia Garden

Flowering Aboretum

Kaufman Hydrangea Garden

Renaissance Garden

Sarah Lee Baker Perennial Garden

Statuary Vista

Virginia Native Plant Garden

World of Wonders – A Children’s Adventure Garden

 

And there are 28 gardens called Themed Gardens. I won’t list them all, but they include the peaceful Japanese Garden, the Hummingbird Garden, and the Colonial Herb Garden.

 

And of course, you can rent various locations in the Garden to hold a wedding, or a conference meeting, or any kind of festive occasion, and what better setting can there be?

 

The Garden is open from 9 am to 7 pm until October.

Never Too Late to Send Flowers to Grandparents.

It’s Not Too Late To Honor A Grandparent

Way back in the early 1970s, a woman named Marian McQuade looked around her and saw that young people weren’t really respecting their elders. Worse than that, many elderly people in nursing homes spent their days forgotten and alone, with no family to visit them and help them pass the time.

She decided that something should be done, and started campaigning for a National Grandparent’s Day. It started out as a grass roots campaign, but gradually through the years various states did indeed set aside a Grandparent’s Day, and in 1978, President Jimmy Carter made it a national event, to be held on the first Sunday after Labor Day.

According to the charter for Grandparent’s Day:

Grandparents are our continuing tie to the near-past, to events and beliefs and experiences that so strongly affect our lives and the world around us. Whether they are our own or surrogate grandparents who fill some of the gaps in our mobile society, our senior generation also provides our society a link to our national heritage and traditions.

Well, since it’s late September, obviously we’ve missed the official Grandparent’s Day in 2008, but that doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate grandparents, in honor of Mrs. McQuade, who died at the glorious age of 91 on September 26, 2008.

Particularly in the Norfolk and Virginia Beach areas of Virginia, where many parents are in the military and are sent overseas on a regular basis, grandparents regularly rally round to care for their grandchildren.

Time to send them a vase of flowers or a gift basket as an extra special gift for all they do.

But it’s not just about celebrating your own grandparents.

There are plenty of nursing and assisted living homes in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, and indeed, in the entire Tidewater area, where seniors live. For those who are shut-ins, they never get out to see anyone, never get to share their memories and their experience, and that’s a pity…and National Grandparent’s Day was also meant to call attention to them, and to honor them.

And when you visit a nursing home in search of a surrogate grandparent, or just to spend some time with people, why not bring a beautiful basket of fresh flowers along?

To order flowers for your grandparents shop Turpinsflorist.com today

How to Select A Florist

How to Select a Florist

When you need to send a bouquet or gift basket to cheer up a friend, or celebrate a birthday or anniversary, you know how important it is that that bouquet or basket has to be “just right.” It has to look wonderful, be wonderful, and arrive on time.

As the saying goes, you only have one chance to make a good first impression. If there’s a problem with the delivery or the product, a replacement bouquet or basket sure won’t have the same impact as that first arrival.

So when choosing a florist, you want to make sure you’re dealing with a reputable company that has a reputation for delivering excellent flowers or gift baskets, nicely designed, and that will arrive on time at its destination. You also want to make sure that the prices you spend are comparable.

1. Reputation for fresh flowers, tastefully arranged

2. Reputation for varieties of flowers, from common to exotic

3. Reputation for on-time delivery

4. Reputation for friendly sales people and floral designers

5. Reputation for comparable price with competitors

While it is certainly possible to visit florists on the web – practically every florist business these days will have a website of some kind, it’s also nice to be able to visit a “bricks-and-mortar” store and talk to the friendly service people there. You can see their offerings at first hand, smell ‘em, touch ‘em, enjoy ‘em.

But a florist’s website is also crucial. At their website, you can see all the information you need to know, from their opening and closing hours, to their delivery times, to the flowers and gift baskets they have on offer, to their prices, to their delivery charges.

You can also purchase flowers, plants, gift baskets and so on from their website, and once again you can compare prices on each item.

Oh, those prices. Price should never be your first or even second consideration when ordering flowers for a friend or loved one. There’s no point in paying a little bit of money for an inferior product, that’s worse than sending nothing at all. On the other hand, you don’t want to pay an exorbitant amount of money, either.

That’s the joy of surfing the internet, you can compare prices on a variety of florists, and combining that with information you already know, make an informed decision.

Some florists have been in business for decades – as for example, Turpin’s Florist! However, some have sprouted up overnight…and how can you tell the wheat from the chaff. Well, there’s always the Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.com) a company that keeps track of any complaints made against a business. It’s always a good thing to check out the BBB whenever you are about to do business with a new company.

Then of course there’s word of mouth. If your friends have had good experiences with a certain florist, they’ll probably direct you there, too. You’ll still want to check them out, though.

It’s Not Too Late to Say Merry Christmas with Flowers This Year

Did you know that Christmas is the most popular time of the year to send flowers? While Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day are close runner-ups, according to the Society of American Florists, 30 percent of flower and plant sales occur during this time of year. Wow! That’s pretty amazing!

If you haven’t had a chance to order holiday flowers, you’re probably thinking it’s too late to place your order in time for Christmas. But luckily, Turpin’s Florist is here to help! Whether you’ve been struggling to find the perfect gift for a family member, friend or colleague, or you simply haven’t had the time to make all of your arrangements for the Christmas holiday, you can still place your orders with Turpin’s Florist for holiday florals, guaranteed to arrive in time for Christmas!

Turpin’s Florist, your favorite online florist, has the most delightful flowers, centerpieces, and gift baskets for Christmas delivery. Not only do we have a wide selection of beautiful holiday arrangements, we’re also offering great savings on items starting at $29.99 with our online coupon codes. Order our “Kincade’s Childhood Home” holiday centerpiece and get $20 off with coupon code C2008E!

You’ll find that we have tons of great choices on our website to spread holiday cheer this year. From red carnations and evergreens to rich red roses and luxurious white lilies, our holiday floral arrangements are the perfect addition to your Christmas place setting or as a gift to loved ones near and far.

If you’re looking for something for business associates, our “Blooms and Goodies” basket is a lovely way to show your appreciation and send best wishes for a wonderful Christmas holiday. It’s filled with gourmet treats and goodies, as well as a Christmas poinsettia, which is the season’s most popular flower.

Our “Poinsettia Planter” is a gorgeous holiday favorite and top seller. We’ve paired this beautiful traditional flower with a modern ceramic striped planter. It’s perfect for decorating your home, or as a Christmas gift for anyone on your list.

Our “Candy Cane Lane” and “Christmas Roses” arrangements are also popular choices! So don’t forget to visit our website and order a Christmas floral arrangement, centerpiece or gift basket today!

Celebrate Christmas with Traditional Holiday Flowers

Each year, we celebrate the miracle of Christmas with a variety of symbols, customs and traditions that have been passed down for hundreds of years. One of the most common symbols of the Christmas season is the poinsettia. This red, star-shaped Christmas floral is a native of Mexico, and is known in Central America as the Flame Leaf and Flower of the Holy Night, a most beautiful and fitting name. In the legend of the poinsettia, two small children wanted to bring gifts to their church for the Baby Jesus, but were too poor to purchase anything. Instead, they picked some weeds growing by the side of the road on their way to their church, and when they placed them by the manger, the weeds turned into bright red petals for all to see.

The legend of the poinsettia is a story as beautiful as its vibrant, red petals. If you want to send flowers this Christmas, poinsettias make wonderful Christmas gifts for friends and family members both near and far. They are the perfect holiday flowers to celebrate this festive and joyous time of the year. They’re also ideal for decorating the home.

Roses are also one of the most popular flowers of the Christmas season. These beautiful blooms are sure to brighten the faces of any friend, family member, client or colleague that you send them to. They are a great way to send well wishes during the holiday season, and make wonderful centerpieces for decorating and entertaining.

This year, Turpin’s Florist, your favorite online florist is helping its customers celebrate the Christmas holiday, and the gift giving season by offering a variety of beautiful holiday floral arrangements, filled with traditional holiday flowers such as poinsettias and roses, as well as other delightful additions including red carnations, lilies, white poms, berries and evergreens. And don’t worry, it’s not too late to order your holiday floral arrangement. Our “Holiday Traditions” and “Glowing Elegance” floral arrangements are designed to compliment your holiday place setting, while our “Holiday Elegance” and “Christmas Roses” make stunning holiday gifts for loved ones. Our “Kinkade’s Childhood Home” not only is an enchanting arrangement complete with a delightful hand-painted cottage, it also comes with the chance to win one of three exciting prizes, including a trip for two to Monterey, California.

From the decorating of the tree to the exchanging of gifts and holiday floral arrangments, we hope that your Christmas is filled with joy, merriment and hope as you share the customs of the season with your loved ones. We offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee on all of our floral arrangements and look forward to helping you brighten the season with poinsettias, roses, lilies and more! Call us today to place your holiday orders. Merry Christmas from Turpin’s Florist!

Creative Thanksgiving Leftover Ideas

 

Despite promises to yourself (and your waistline) that you wouldn’t overindulge this year, you’re probably stuffed just like the turkey after a plentiful holiday feast. And now that the holiday is over, you’ve got more turkey, dressing, macaroni and cheese and pumpkin pie than you know what to do with.

 

Did you know that many of the foods that we traditionally eat on Thanksgiving aren’t really traditional at all? According to historians, foods such as pumpkin pie (although they did have pumpkins), cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes weren’t on the menu for the first Thanksgiving held back 1621. And some of the dishes that the pilgrims did have with their meal that we don’t typically have included cod, eel, lobster, seal, grapes and plums.

 

While you’re probably not going to head out and try to recreate a 17^th century traditional Thanksgiving dinner, you probably are looking for creative ways to serve all of those Thanksgiving leftovers. Turkey sandwiches, soups and salads are great ways to revise the main course. You can kick it up a notch with spicy recipes like turkey curry or turkey enchiladas. Ummm, that sounds delicious! Or what about a hot soup to warm you up after a cold day of shopping or frolicking outside with the kids?

 

About.com has a great recipe for Turkey Divan Soup. We’ve included the recipe below for your convenience. However you decide to make use of the leftovers, we know they’ll be tasty!

 

Ingredients:

1-tablespoon butter

1 medium onion, chopped

2 1/2 cups turkey stock or chicken broth

1 medium clove garlic, minced

2 cups whipping cream or heavy cream

1/8-teaspoon ground black or white pepper

1/8-teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped blanched broccoli or thawed frozen broccoli

2 cups leftover cooked turkey

4 ounces ham, cut into strips

 

Preparation:

Melt butter over medium-low heat in a Dutch oven or stockpot; sauté onion until soft. Add stock and garlic. Stir in cream and seasonings. Heat for 10 minutes, but do not boil. Add cheese, broccoli, turkey and ham; continue to heat, stirring, until cheese melts. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

 

We hope you enjoy the recipe! And now that Thanksgiving is winding down, don’t forget to visit our website for lots of great Christmas floral ideas! You can save up to $20 off orders of $69.99 or more. Be sure to order early so that your poinsettias, roses, white lilies, Christmas greens and more for your home, or for family and friends arrive in time. Happy Holidays!