Froggy Went a Courtin'

Click photos to enlarge.
There is an edit below.

A day or two ago, I clicked on a post at Melange, and I was surprised to see that Roxanne had a little something for me:

http://melange1.blogspot.com/2006/02/frog-went-courting.html

It was a big surprise, since I had been preparing this post called Froggy Went a Courtin', referring to the title of a tabletop design competition that I entered in a local floral design contest last month. The photos didn't come out all that well since it was darker than usual in the room, but perhaps you can get the gist of it anyway.

The dishes, which are my everyday ones, have frogs, lilypads, water lilies and dragonflies around the edges. In the top photo, you can barely make out a frog container; it has a yoke across the frog's shoulders, and it holds 2 small glass vials (which are holding lavender roses). The glass dish and the frog sit on a lily pad made from galax leaves, and there are tumbled green glass bits in the water, as well as 2 small frogs. Another small green frog holds onto the edge of the glass dish.

In the bottom picture, a small arrangement to the left (which was cut off in the picture) is in a green porcelain frog, and nestled amoung the roses is another small frog.

I do, as I have mentioned before, collect frogs. Not the cartoonish kind, but real-looking frogs, of any size. As time permits, I will photograph and post some of my frog collection for you. Enjoy!

Edit: some have asked how I did in the competition. I was the only entrant in the design for tables for two, so I won by default. This is the first competition I have ever entered, and the benefit of it was reading the judges' comments afterward. The judges (there were three) are given papers to fill out, with categories such as: relationship to theme, overall design, scale to table, floral mechanics. They have to assign a number from 1-5 to each category. Out of a possible 25 points per judge, I received 23, 22 and 19. The lower one said: "I would like to have seen a more whimsical tablecloth."


Had I been willing to spend a lot of money on the competition, I would have used a more whimsical treatment for the table. What you cannot see in these photos is that the front of the table cloth was pulled up into a fold on each corner and it had a bow like the ones on the napkins, into which a rose was inserted. I would have preferred a better cloth, but I used what I already had.