>> "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by... Albertsons Companies... with additional support from the following... CalFlowers... Dollar Tree... Sunshine Bouquet.

♪ >> Hearts-and-flowers is a popular sentiment and the focus of today's episode.

We'll take a look at several ways hearts and flowers combine to express feelings of love to those who are special to us, today on "Life in Bloom."

♪ I'm J Schwanke.

Welcome to "Life in Bloom."

According to the dictionary, the phrase hearts-and-flowers, first coined in 1915, means a show of sentiment or sentimentality or a cloying expression of endearment.

At "Life in Bloom," we choose to embrace the happy reward a bit of sentiment can bring instead of focusing on insincerity.

Flowers have a way of expressing emotion and a feeling that is sometimes difficult to speak out loud.

For that and more, flowers have our eternal gratitude.

Sometimes, you need to wear your heart on your sleeve, so I'll show you ways to let the flowers do the talking.

Let's begin our show on hearts and flowers with a heart made of flowers.

One of my favorite flowers are chrysanthemums.

They'll be perfect for filling in a little heart shape of foam.

First thing we'll do is bevel the foam.

The reason we bevel the foam is to give ourselves a nice, rounded edge.

It's hard to make a rounded form when you're working with an edge that's a corner.

So by rounding it, it's going to allow us to make it more heart-shaped.

We'll start by placing one flower right in the middle of the heart.

Then we'll work along that edge.

And you'll notice we're not sticking the flowers in completely.

So, we're increasing the size of the heart to give it a real, true heart shape.

So, you can see how far out we are from the edge of that heart.

Because the heart form is so small, if we filled it in completely, it would just look like a blob.

So we have to use some artistic license to create something that looks like a heart.

You'll also notice that, when I'm placing the flowers in the foam, I'm using the stem to insert them.

So I'm coming low to the foam and inching the flowers in with my fingers.

Now that I've created the exaggerated form of the heart, I can go back in and fill it in.

I'm also keeping the stems longer on the top so I get the form of a heart.

There.

It looks like a nice, puffy heart.

♪ Topiary forms like this heart-shaped one can be enhanced with a bit of ribbon to personalize your message of love and caring.

Let's decorate this with a few ribbons in a simple technique that will make people think you worked for hours.

So, we'll take several lengths of ribbon.

We're going to pull out that ribbon and gather it with nice, long loops.

Then we'll add another ribbon, and, again, we'll make those nice, long loops.

Finally, a third ribbon that is a narrower form but still matches our same color palette, We'll add that in, making those nice, big loops.

We'll cut off this ribbon.

Use a length that's about 12 inches long.

Tying together where we gathered all of our loops.

So, now we've got those nice, long loops, and they're tied off in one section.

We'll take that loop section and tie it into the center of the double heart.

So, we've attached that securely.

Now we'll come back to our loops and cut.

As we separate those loops, we get two great streamer tails.

So, now all of our loops have been separated, so each one of these is an individual tail.

Now, we could run it down around, almost like a maypole effect, but, instead, we're going to take pieces and wind them up around the rustica double hearts.

What I'm going to do is coordinate this part of the heart and this part... so that we start to theme one of those hearts... showing how they intertwine.

Slipping the end of the ribbon between the frame and the ivy allows us to secure it in place.

Now we can take our fatter ribbon and wrap it around the opposite.

Then our remaining pieces can be woven around and just dangle down casually into the pot itself.

It looks like we took hours weaving that around there, but it's a real simple trick that allows us to have a very elegant decoration for our wedding or special event.

Hearts and flowers are almost mandatory as decorations for weddings.

What could be more appropriate?

I'll show you how this heart-shaped-wreath form can be filled with flowers to express love at a wedding or any special occasion.

The form that I'm using is a heart form that comes with fresh-flower foam.

So I was able to soak it so it will sustain these fresh flowers when we create our heart.

Those heart forms are available at a craft store or you can find them online.

I'll start with a little background of greenery.

That fern softens the edge and will help fill in between the flowers.

This project takes short flowers, so all of the flowers can be cut off short.

I like to cut them off and add them one type at a time.

That really helps me make sure that I've got those flowers scattered all the way through the heart.

Big flowers, like gerberas and peonies, help define the shape because they're a big, strong flower and they fill in a large mass.

The other delicate flowers go in between, and they help us define that shape.

I'm always working so that I won't lose my heart shape by keeping some stems too long.

♪ ♪ ♪ I grabbed two bunches of flowers and I chose two bunches that were the same color so that it's going to give a cohesive color range to my arrangement.

Flowers like chrysanthemums and carnations are great for filling in, and they last such a long time.

My last flower is always lilies.

I love using lilies, but they're delicate, so I put them in last so I don't worry about breaking them when I'm adding other flowers.

A heart of flowers certainly says love, so you could hang it on the wall or even on a front door, or you could use it as an accent on the table or a buffet.

There's plenty of different things that you can do with a heart of flowers when you're having a special occasion, party, or event.

Heart-shaped ice cubes are a symbolic addition to this cocktail known as the Wild Heart.

We'll start with a cocktail shaker filled with ice.

Then we'll add 2 ounces of Aperol and 2 ounces of vermouth.

A half of a fresh-squeezed lemon.

And a few dashes of bitters.

We'll shake and add to our glass with our heart-shaped ice cubes.

We'll finish it off with bitter lemon soda and an orange wheel for garnish.

It's a refreshing citrus drink with a slightly bitter taste.

One of the things I love about flowers is their versatility.

Of course, they're beautiful.

They bring joy just by looking at them.

But they can also bring unexpected health and wellness benefits into our lives.

Many flowers and plants are working behind the scenes to provide much-needed health and wellness benefits to things we enjoy, like tea, cocktails, and even recipes in the kitchen.

Today, I want to talk more about how applying flowers, plants and botanicals to our body, specifically as an additive to soap, can do much more than cleanse our hands and feet.

I've invited my friend Ms. Margo to join me in the kitchen to share how she uses the healing attributes of flowers and plants and infuses them into her handmade soaps to promote health, wellness, and cleansing of body, mind, and spirit.

Today, with hearts and flowers, I thought it would be fun to bring out one of the people who is -- You just kind of keep me all on track, so you're really good for my heart.

>> Well, thank you.

You are, too.

>> So I thought that I would have you today.

So for our friends, tell everybody who Ms. Margo is.

>> I am known as a seer with my Chippewa tribe of Mt.

Pleasant, Michigan.

There's only four of us out of 100 years that is chosen, and I'm one of four.

So, a seer is a person who is very sensitive to other people's auras, energy, can read past, present, and future.

So, I hold ceremonies, and as a seer, this is what I do for a living.

>> I discovered your soaps at the powwow.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> And you had your soaps there.

But what I noticed about them that's so interesting to me is that there's botanicals that go with them, and there's also stories.

And I'm a story guy.

>> Right.

>> And, so, you have stories that go with them, and you've used different types of flowers and botanicals in them.

So I thought it would be fun for us to talk about that, and you can tell people about how you make it, because I think it's unique, how you make this soap.

It's different.

>> It is different.

And it is a softer soap because I don't use any lye or alcohol.

It is a goat base and a hemp base that I use.

And then I add avocado oil, I add, you know, goat milk, and, you know, coconut oil.

And I add all my other secret ingredients and all natural and everything to this.

Plus, most of the herbs are from my garden.

So, a lot of them have medicinal healings.

They have stories behind them, what they can do for the body, mind, spirit, and soul.

>> Let's start with She's Beautiful.

>> Like I said, they are a little softer soap.

It has organic oils in it.

And this one has rose and lemongrass in this.

So, lemongrass is great for digestive tract.

Rose is good for thinking of beauty, beauty in self and beauty in others.

With goat milk, it helps with eczema, dry skin, and psoriasis.

So it does help with so many good, healthy things, because goat milk is the closest pH balance to our skin and our digestive tract.

So it's going to be balancing your skin and everything.

>> Wow!

>> But Tall Teepee has cedar, orange, and tangerine in it.

>> And when I think of Tall Teepee, I think about it being citrus.

>> So, the cedar is actually used the natives for prayer.

It crackles when you first put that into the fire.

So it's waking up the spirit.

So it's to awaken you and to make you feel alive when you're washing with it.

>> Right, right, right.

>> A lot of people cannot use sage to burn because, you know, the smoke and everything.

So that was actually my first step.

I needed to make something that was healing, that people let them be that they're working in the office or something, and they just want to feel positive and they can't, like, smudge around and there's negative people around, our thoughts and stuff, that they feel cleansed and centered for that day for themselves.

>> What makes you come up with another soap?

>> I think a lot of people communicating to me, "Do you have this?

Do you have --" You know, they'll ask me -- Like, a lot of hunters will ask me, "Do you have ones with no scents or do you have this for babies or animals?

", just really being open-minded to it.

And learning -- Then I have to do research about the balance and everything.

You know, how much ingredients, how much oils.

>> So, Ms. Margo, you know that when you come, we have a tradition.

We have flower crowns.

So I made a flower crown for you this morning.

>> Yay!

>> For you.

>> Oh, I'm so honored.

>> I know, right?

Well, let's see.

I remember that you have a little head.

>> I feel like a goddess already.

>> Oh, hold on.

Leaves.

Okay.

There we go.

Well, thank you for coming.

I appreciate you.

>> Thank you.

>> Yeah.

>> You're a good man.

>> You look good with -- >> Do I look like a goddess or do I just look like a flower?

>> No, you look like a goddess.

>> Flower soap lady now.

>> No, a goddess.

[ Both laugh ] I love chocolates and I love the heart-shaped boxes.

There's always so many different chocolates to choose from.

But when I'm done, I have a beautiful box and I never want to throw it away and I want to repurpose it.

So here's a fun way to repurpose a heart-shaped box with some succulents.

We'll line our box with Spanish moss.

Then I'm trimming back the succulents to make sure that they fit down inside the box.

Some of them are a little too tall.

These chocolate hearts are wrapped in foil, so I can nestle them down between the succulents.

I'll give any stragglers of moss a haircut with my scissors so they don't stick out when I close the box.

So, now it's ready to give as a gift.

When we're talking about hearts and flowers, sometimes, we can use the individual petals to create a heart shape.

We've got some small flowers here.

These are little pompons, spray chrysanthemums, and we can tear off the petals and use the petals to create a little heart shape.

Now, obviously, using ones that contrast the surface that we're working on is important.

There's lots of fun ways for us to use petals to create a heart shape.

So, let's do something a little bigger today.

It's a beautiful rose.

The variety is called circus.

And we're going to use it to set up a little heart-shaped treat for somebody that would be awaiting them when they get home.

♪ Now we have a wonderful heart of rose petals that's surrounding our treat of cookies and champagne.

It's a wonderful way to leave a surprise for someone with hearts and flowers.

Bleeding hearts have long been a favorite in perennial gardens, characterized by their heart-shaped blooms.

Flowers appear in red, pink, or white.

The plant returns early in spring and dies back quickly after blooming.

Bleeding-heart plants are low maintenance, deer-resistant, and suitable as cut flowers.

The plant typically grows 1 to 3 feet in height and prefer partial shade to full shade.

Traditionally and not surprisingly, the red and pink flowers are said to symbolize romantic love, while white flowers symbolize purity.

The plant is also known as Lady's Locket, Lady's Heart, and the Lyre Flower.

The bleeding heart is perfect as a pressed flower.

Pick flowers early in the morning, after the dew has dried.

Put the flowers between paper and place between the pages of a thick book.

After a couple of weeks, you'll have perfect, flat, papery hearts.

The combination of hearts and flowers may seem overly sentimental to some, but their message is a clear indication of heartfelt emotion.

Flowers are always at the ready to help express our feelings.

For "Life in Bloom," I'm J Schwanke.

>> Now, another one that I have is -- This is called S.O.B.

So, this is one of my popular ones, because at the time, I was dating a guy, and he loves the smell of Nag Champa, and I love the smell of wisteria.

So I combined those two.

But then he broke up with me.

So then I was just like, "I'm going to call it S.O.B., Soap On Body.

>> Got it.

>> Well, now we're engaged, and now it's -- >> Oh, I love it.

>> Thank you.

Now it's Something About Bob, because that is his name.

>> Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's fun.

I like that.

Something About Bob.

>> Something About Bob.

>> "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

>> "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by... Albertsons Companies... with additional support from the following... CalFlowers... Dollar Tree... Sunshine Bouquet.

♪ Closed-caption funding provided by Holland America Flowers.

♪ For everything flowers, recipes, projects, and more information, visit ubloom.com.

♪