Kelsey Thompson, AIFD, owner and head designer at Bloom Floral & Home Studio in Algona, Iowa, tapped her love of storytelling through floral design to win the 53rd annual Sylvia Cup Design Competition. Photo courtesy of Carrie Moore.
Kelsey Thompson, AIFD, owner and head designer at Bloom Floral & Home Studio in Algona, Iowa, won the 53rd annual Sylvia Cup Design Competition at the Society of American Florists’ 137th annual convention last week.
Embracing her love of storytelling through floral design, Thompson focused on the playful, quirky and repetitive aspects of the competition’s theme: The Whimsical World of Dr. Seuss.
“I have two small children ages six and nine, so I’m in the Dr. Seuss world right now,” Thompson says of the year’s mystery theme. “When was revealed, I said, ‘I’ve got this.’”
And then she set out to have some fun.
“Mostly everything Dr. Seuss does embodies play — nothing too serious — so, I tried not to take it too seriously,” she says.
The grand prize included the trophy, $3,000 and free registration for SAF’s convention next year. Thompson, who competed in the Sylvia Cup for the first time after working for five days as part of the convention design team, said she reinvested the prize money in her new online business, Petals and Profits, which is focused on educating retail florists about marketing and business strategies. The cash covered the bill for the website design.
Jenny Thomasson, AAF, AIFD, PFCI, EMC, of Jenny T Floristry in Dallas, Texas was the first runner-up and received $500; Sam Prom-Chiem, AIFD, of Floral Chateaux in Fallbrook, California, was second runner-up and received $250.
(Click here to see pictures from the competition.)
The event, organized by the Professional Floral Communicators-International (PFCI) was sponsored by Smithers-Oasis, which provided the prize money and hard goods, and Certified American Grown, which provided the fresh product.
The 20 competing designers had just two hours to create three designs: a cascading bouquet to capture the whimsy of the Truffula tree from ‘The Lorax’; a brunch banquet piece to honor Sam-I-Am of ‘Green Eggs and Ham’; and a sympathy design for the funeral of the Grinch from ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas.’
Thompson drew inspiration from the lessons of those stories.
She started by designing the required cascade bouquet made entirely of foliage that captures the whimsy of the Truffula tree from ‘The Lorax.’
“We had a full catalogue of greenery to pull from, and I love working with greenery,” she says. “I knew I wanted to start from a wire structure.”
In designing the banquet composition using the Smithers-Oasis Sage Green ECOssentials containers that honored Sam-I-Am, Thompson says she relied on the journey Sam-I-Am undergoes as he repeatedly attempts to convince Guy-Am-I to try green eggs and ham. Taking a more interpretive approach, she created a rainbow that transitioned in color, and included a few spirals that reflected the coils of a ham.
For the sympathy arrangement, Thompson focused on the Grinch’s change of heart at the end of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas.’ Designers were instructed to incorporate a heart in some shape or form in their designs. Thompson created three, illustrating the book’s line of how the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes. Long-stem red roses guided the eye above to the heart.
Those details were not lost on the judges, including Tim Farrell, AAF, AIFD, PFCI, of Farrell’s Florist in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, who praised Thompson’s “clean and precise mechanics” and says that her designs demonstrated a strong understanding of the elements and principles of design.
“I loved the triple heart created to add beautiful depth to her sympathy design,” he says.
Sarah Sampson is a contributing writer for the Society of American Florists.
