Creative Inspiration: our floral wall is featured in the book Extraordinary Handlettering by Doris Wai

Way back in March ( which seems like a year ago right now) I spent a day on the upper floor of a rather fancy private club in downtown Toronto. On King street, tucked away in an old building, the Albany Club is rather unassuming from the front. Once inside you take a tiny and very old elevator up to the top floor. It's the type of building and the type of elevator you expect to see in a 1930's Agatha Christie mystery novel. The door of the elevator actually has a handle and you open it actually like a door. It was adorable.

I was there to make and install a large scale floral wall to be featured in a book by my friend Doris Wai. Doris is extremely talented and all round creative ( we did a little feature on her here). She runs Love Lettering, a company that handletters signage on just about anything for just about anyone. And she has been working crazy hard on putting together a really gorgeous book. I didn't know Doris when she first asked me to be a part of the book, but a mutual friend suggested I might be able to do what she needed.

Doris gave me the brief of creating a large scale rich and moody floral wall, that she would then hang beautiful handmade glass mirrors on that she had hand lettered to create a seating chart as if for a wedding.  I'm going to be honest here and tell you what I didn't tell Doris, which is that I've never made such a thing before. So of course, I said yes, absolutely!

And on the day the result turned out exactly as both Doris and I had hoped, a moody, slightly wild wall of rich toned florals with vines of greenery crawling between the blooms, like the wall of a secret garden left to grow wild and unfettered.

We started with a large wooden board that Doris painted flat black. We led it on the floor (on top of a thick blanket) and once the places for the mirrors was chalked in I got started. I coloured a set of staples in with a black marker so they wouldn't show against the board, and got to work using a staple gun to attach the back layer of greens. Then I was able to add layers of blooms and more greenery, tucking under the stapled on framework. It was long and rather laborious work, there really is no quick way to get it done and we had only a four hour window to work within from load in to load out.

But it got done, and then the wonderful Janet Kwan got to work taking her gorgeous photographs.

This month the book is finally out, and I am so excited to be able to say how perfectly gorgeous and inspiring it is! Doris walks the reader through every aspect of lettering, giving insight into her tools and process that mean anyone can take on one of the beautiful projects she includes and make it their own.

Here she is, the lovely Doris who I am so happy to now call a friend. She came by the shop recently and dropped off a personalized copy of the book for me, and I'm slowly working my way through it- there is so much information in there and I'm so inspired already and I'm still just on the section about tools of the trade! She also very kindly signed some copies for us to carry here too, so you can pick up an autographed book for yourself or as a gift.

You can follow Doris on her Instagram account here or follow her insta account for the book, Extraordinary Handlettering here.

The wonderful creative vendors that made this shoot happen are:

Lettering & Concept - Love Lettering & Extraordinary Hand Lettering - Doris Wai

Janet Kwan Photography -Photography - Janet Kwan

Madison and Ella - Styling - Annie Tu

Southern Charm Vintage Rentals - Rentals - Kathie Barone

Alicia Ann Glassworks for the octagon handmade mirrors - Alicia Ann

The Albany Club - Venue