You were unable to swim at all. But you wanted to learn how to swim. You had decided to learn swimming on the internet and you got lots of information about how to swim. You must have got lots of theoretical and conceptual information from internet. After that you went to a local swimming pool and tried to swim. The result was miserable. You could not swim at all. Why ? Because you did not practice in the water. You learned only theory and concept on the internet. You lacked practice in the water which must be the reason why you could not swim. Therefore you started to practice swimming in the pool by remembering what you “learned” on the internet. You struggled to swimm. You tried almost everyday. The result was still not good at all. Why ? You did not have anybody who gave you advice, suggestion or instructions. The ideal way is (1) you learned theory. (2) You found a good instructor. Then (3) You began to swim in the swimming pool by way of getting instructions and advices from your instructor. Namely, when you learn something which requires skills or techniques, it is mandatory for you to apply the theory (you learned probably from internet or at a classroom) to actual techniques through actual practice.

Sorry for spending time for swimming although the theme here is Flower Arrangement Class. Learning floral designs or flower arrangement MAY be in the same boat as learning how to swim or how to dance or how to drive. The bottom line is you need practice in addition to learning theory and concept. At the moment, due to the remarkable progress of internet technology, we can find lots of online educdation programs or internet courses. I am pretty sure these educational programs greatly contribute to people who are enthusiastic for learning at school but they live in the location far from classrooms or schools. And those students must be beneficiaries of online educations deriving from internet technologies. Such distance learning system must be pretty effective and useful especially for subjects and themes which are conceptual matters such as psychology, philosophy or literature whatsoever.

However when it comes to subjects which require practice and techniques such as orthopedic surgery, dental treatment, carpenter job, driving,  swimming or dancing whatsoever, only internet education may not be enough. If those students (who learned on the internet course) can have “after-sales services”, the situation must be much better. Namely if they have opportunities of applying theory, concept and knowledge (earned from internet) to actual techniques and skills, they could get even better results.  Floral Design COULD fall in this kind of group which does require actual practice and skills/techniques to perform a job. We sometimes hear the story about a person who “learned” floral dsigns on the internet. She is good at theory but not good at all when it comes to actual arrangement of flowers. The reason behind this situation MUST be that she is lacking opportunites of doing practice. We also hear the silimar story about a person who took lessons of flower arrangement at a community college offering classes based on mass production large scale class system where one teacher must take care of 20 to 30 students per class (Therefore it is pretty difficult for students to have hands on training from a teacher or instructor. No matter whether the instructor is experienced or capable, taking care of so many students for practical training must be very difficult).  Despite she learned theory about how to design flowers, color combination, names of flowers and also the function of various elements/portion of flower materials, she is not so good at actual floral arranging. Why ? The reason MUST be she is lacking practices. The bottom line is above mentioned people must have opportunities of applying the theory (which they got from the education on the internet or community college) to actual techniques and skills of making floral decorations.

They should make the best use of theory, concept and knowledge which they acquired through the internet education or college lectures. In order to do a nice job, it is pretty important to satisfy both requirements. Namely theory and practice (practical skills and techniques).  It is ideal for students to have instructors when learning lessons of not only theory but also techniques. Especially when it comes to practicing, it is better to have a well experienced  instructor who can provide instructions, directions, advices and suggestions to improve and enhance students’ techniques. California Flower Art Academy offers high quality yet affordable  programs and courses necessary for a variety of floral arrangements from wedding to funeral decorations, beginner to professional courses, fresh to dried/silk flower arrangements, European floral design to Japanese Ikebana arrangement AND one day seminar to official courses. Students can make a choice of his/her most favorite program depending upon his/her needs and taste. We spend most of the time for students making practice of actual floral designs by way of hands on training of person to person instructions (close to semi-private lessons) limiting number of students up to six (6) per class (typically only 3 to 4 students per class) whereby we can implement ONE ON ONE educdation and keep the quality of lessons.

California Flower Art Academy is authorized by Flower Decorators Association which is one of the best established and prestigious floral associations in Japan. We offer classes on weekdays and also on the weekend. Daytime and evening lessons are offered to support busy people.You can strat from Introductory Trial Budget Program for only $69 or Table Arrangement Program (one day lesson) for only $150.  If you live in Greater San Francisco (Bay Area and Peninsula including Burlingame in San Mateo County) or Silicon Valley (South and East Bay including Mountain View, Milpitas, San Jose, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Saratoga etc)., you can easily commute to and from a school. If you are interested in joining our school, please send email to info@california-academy.com and visit our website http://www.california-academy.com  We help you make a difference in floral art.

If you are looking for a reliable floral design school offering affordable yet quality lessons, your search is over. California Flower Art Academy is accredited by Flower Decorators Association (Tokyo Japan) providing quality instructions, classes, seminars, training programs and workshops of a wide range of flower arranging from wedding floral decorations to funeral arrangements, European floral designs to Japanese Ikebana arrangements, basics for beginner to professional levels AND fresh to dried/silk flower arrangements. We have been educating uncountable number of students in Greager San Francisco (San Francisco Bay Area and Peninsula including Daly City, Millbrae in San Mateo County) and Silicon Valley (South and East Bay including Milpitas, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, San Jose, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Saratoga) since 1992. No matter what your purpose is for learning floral designs, for business or hobby, we can help you earn practical skills of flower arranging.  Lessons are offered seven days a week and classes are available not only during daytime but also in the evening to support busy people at our San Jose main classroom and also at Burlingame extension class near San Francisco Airport. You can start from Introductory Trial Budget Program for only $69 (including flower materials). If you are interested in joining our school, please contact info @california-academy.com and visit our website http://www.california-academy.com  We help you make a difference in floral art

If you like art and if you are tired of regular kind of art which is one dimensional, why not making three dimensional art ? Using multi-layer of art or pictures, shadow box art is hand-made. This is a kind of picture framing art. Only the difference is we use three dimensional concept. This sophisticated art originates in Europe and completed art never looks like materials are papers. In order for finished art to look realistic, we use “liquid glass” which is painted on the surface of top layer picture. Therefore completed art is shiny and looks real. If art or pictures used for this art feature a certain view, you can enjoy and appreciate nice view in the frame. If this picture features a beautiful vase or cup and saucer, you will appreciate three dimensional view of cup and saucer inside the frame. Framing picture or framed pictures are very popular in the United States. By learning skills of making 3D shadow box art, you  can make a variety of beautiful arts which can be displayed in the frame. For completing shadow box art, it is necessary to use a right size of frame (box) which fits with the size of pictures, mat and glue etc etc. Shadow Box Academy offers a wide range of classes and lessons so that students can make multi-layer (three dimensional) art using various kinds of pictures or arts. In order for you to do this job, it is mandatory for you to be skillful. If you are interently skillful, that is the best and it greatly helps you make this refined art. In Japan there are many classes which offer lessons of making shadow box art. Most of instructors or school owners have expeirnces in learning this art in foreign countries such as France, England or sometimes America. In the United States, the market of framing pictures, framed art or picture framing is huge. There are no such market in Japan because people in Japan do not have any habits or customs of putting everything in the frame and display on the wall of house or office. Of course they are getting changed by influence of the United States or European cocuntries. Although there are limited demand for framing art in Japan, one thing which is amazing is quality of three dimension art (3D art. They call “shadow box art”) is very high seemingly because most of people are very skillful. If you are interested in thiis highly sophisticated 3D art and learning more about it, why not visit the website of Shadow Box Academy.

Remarks: San Fancisco Peninsula, San Francisco Bay Area, Greater San Francisco, Silicon Valley, South Bay, East Bay, Northern California, Floral Craft, Floristry, Horticulture, wedding floral decoration, funeral floral arrangement, affordable floral class

Wedding is one of the biggest events in your life. Not only the  bride and groom but also their parents, family members, relatives and also  friends must have been waiting for this big event and would like to cerebrate it from their hearts.

In order to make  this event a beautiful,  memoriable and attractive one, a lot of vendors are involved in the management and decorations such as wedding  planners, photography and video services providers, wedding dress designers, wedding jewelry shops and wedding decorators etc etc.

One of them is a wedding floral decorator who is engaged in designing and arranging floral decorations such as table arrangements, bridal corsage, boutonniere, hand tied bouquets, wreaths, altar decoration, wedding cake decoration and cancle decoration whatsover. Since wedding floral decorations involve a wide range of floral designs based on  high level of designing skills, most of wedding floral decorators are usually well educated and well experienced.

As seen from the above, wedding flower arrangement requires the skills of decoration not only for table arrangement (center piece decoration) but also small handy designs such as wrist corsage, hand tied bouquet and boutonniere etc etc. In addition to this, some other decorationsmayll be done such as wedding flower basket, virgin road decoration and even silk flower gifts may be prepared.  Therefore a broad range of arranging skills and techniques are required to perform wedding floral decorations. This particular ONCE IN A LIFE EVENT decoration has factors of event decorations, party arrangements and also  gift designs as well. If any part of floral decoration is done by silk flower arrangement, the bride and groom can keep it as an unforgattable memory forever.

In many cases, the purpose of learning floral arrangement is often becoming a wedding floral decorator while so many people enjoy learning it just as a hobby. As mentioned, in order to work as a wedding floral decorator, a variety of flower arranging skills and actual experiences as a floral designer may be required if he/she wants to offer a perfect service of wedding floral decoration.

The bottom line is learning wedding floral decoration should be done only after acquiring fundamental skills of floral designs. Namely basics of flower arranging is so important in order to make further development in flower arranging skills.

California Flower Art Academy: http://www.california-academy.com

Remarks: San Fancisco Peninsula, San Francisco Bay Area, Greater San Francisco, Silicon Valley, South Bay, East Bay, Northern California, Floral Craft, Floristry, Horticulture, wedding floral decoration, funeral floral arrangement, affordable floral class

Let’s take a look at the difference in floral supplies between Ikebana  and other floral arrangements. First of all, any and all floral supplies used for Ikebana Arrangement are totally different from a regular kind of floral designs. Take vase or container for instance, Ikebana often uses a flat one of which shape is similiar to a round tray. How do they arrange flowers on or in such a flat “container”. They use what is called “KENZAN” which is a needlepoint holder for holding flowers. In the case of regular flower arrangements, they use what is called “OASIS” which is a foam made from chemical stuff and it looks like sponge. They insert flower stems to OASIS when arranging flowers. Above mentioned needlepoint holder has uncountable number of needles mounted on the surface of iron plate which is heavy enough to hold flower materials. Needlepoint holder  (“KENZAN”) is not disposable while “OASIS” is disposable and not heavy at all. In terms of difficulties, needlepoint holder  (KENZAN) is  more difficult than OASIS. How about container or vase ? As mentioned in the above, flat type of container is often used for Ikebana Arrangement. Due to the shape of this container, they cannot but use needlepoint holder (KENZAN) which makes Ikebana arrangement more difficult than regular flower arrangement. Of course even Ikebana often uses vertical type of container, in which case there is not so big difference in the way of making decoration because when using a vertical vase/container, they usually do not use OASIS or KENZAN for holding flowers. In addition to vase, container and needlepoint holder, we find a big difference in the type of scissors. Japanese flower arranging scissors are again difficult to use because of its shape. It is necessary to use much stronger power to use Japanese floral designing scissors unlike European or American style of scissors. Just for clarifying the difference in Ikebana and Regular Flower Arrangement, we show pictures as below. The left is one of examples of typical Ikebana Arrangement together with KENZAN (needlepoint holder)  and the right is one of examples of regular kind of flower arrangement using OASIS. You also find a difference in the type of container. Japanes type is called “SUIBAN” of which height is very limited. If you are interested in learning Ikebana Arrangement or European Floral Design from a well experienced Ikebana Instructor, join California Flower Art Academy. Enjoy making a difference in floral art.

Remarks: San Fancisco Peninsula, San Francisco Bay Area, Greater San Francisco, Silicon Valley, South Bay, East Bay, Northern California, Floral Craft, Floristry, Horticulture, wedding floral decoration, funeral floral arrangement, affordable floral class

Among so many kinds of floral designs, table arrangement is considered one of the recommendable designs for entry level of students to start with. If you are interested in learning flower arranging, it may be a good idea to start from centepiece decoration by joining a one day special program called “Table Arrangement Centerpiece Decoration Program”. In order to support entry level of students, California Flower Art Academy prepares 3 kinds of this sort of designs so that beginner students can easily learn and earn practical skills of flower arrangements. This special session lasts about 3-4 hours and is offered at our San Jose  main classroom (nearby the intersection of Freeway 85 and De Anza Blvd) and also at our Burlingame extension class (close to San Francisco Airport). By joining this session, you will acquire skills of making basic centerpiece decoration which can be used not only for wedding parties but also for various kinds of events such as birthday party, anniversary, Christmas, Thanksgiving or Valentines Day whatsoever. Some people may make the best use of skills earned from this session for making wedding decoration for their own wedding parties whereby they will minimize the cost of wedding floral decoration. It is not always necessary to master an entire range of wedding arrangement for you to implement DIY (Do It Yourself) plan on your own wedding party. You just make part of the entire wedding decoration by yourself and have a better experienced professional floral decorator take care of the rest of decorations whereby you can save money on your wedding decoration. This is one of ideas for you to save cost for your wedding. Some people who enroll in California Flower Art Academy actually implement above mentioned plan. Some people offer wedding floral decoration services to their family member(s), relatives, friends and also eventually to the third parties on their wedding decorations. If  they seriously think about working as a wedding floral decorator, they will enroll in Wedding Floral Decoration Course offered by our school. Anyway learning table arrangements can be a good start for you to acquire skills of floral designs no matter whether you learn for business or hobby purpose. Lessons  are offered not only on weekend but also on weekend to support busy people like you. Classes are offered at San Jose and Burlingame classroom. If you live in Greater San Francisco (Peninsula including Daly City, Burlingame, Millbrae, San Mateo, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Redwood City or Foster City) OR in Silicon Valley (East Bay and Santa Clara County in South Bay  including San Jose,  Mountain View, Milpitas, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Saratoga, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Morgan Hill etc) we recommend you to join California Flower Art Academy which educates you with hands on training of person to person instructions. We adopt small size class having maximum number of students only six (60 per class which greatly helps entry level of students easily acquire practical skills of flower arranging. If you are interested in our program, please email to info@california-academy.com and visit our website http://www.california-academy.com We help you make a difference in floral art.