Shop Local

shop local by Rina Rapuano

Fresh Picked

We all know that buying local produce helps reduce your carbon footprint and increases your chances of finding the freshest fruits and veggies. Stem & Thistle owner Brooke Gagnier points out that the same principle applies to flowers.

“It just makes such a huge difference to have local flowers—they are literally harvested the day before you purchase them,” says the Arlington-based floral designer. “The color is amazing, the fragrance is incredible, and they last a long time.”

Gagnier says pandemic downtime nudged her to seek sources closer to home for the blooms in her bouquets. She eventually started working with a new Northern Virginiabased group called the Old Dominion Flower Cooperative. Most of the co-op’s farms are women-owned and incorporate sustainable practices.

“It’s nice because they’re really making it more convenient for us so we can source locally,” says the former middle-school English teacher, who finds inspiration equally through architecture magazines and in the streets and trails surrounding her home studio.

Brooke Gagnier

“I am a runner, and I have a lot of time on my runs to be inspired by what I see, whether it’s on footpaths or running around Arlington,” she says.

Gagnier arranges flowers for intimate weddings, small gatherings and special occasions with an aesthetic that skews “very textural, kind of organic in style, and kind of wild. More freeflowing and natural.”

She generally gravitates toward a more muted color palette, but counts colorful cosmos among her favorite blossoms—along with hellebores, garden roses and, you guessed it, thistles.

Her larger arrangements start at $120 including delivery, but she says her smallest, which she calls Sweet Jars of Joy ($35, with a minimum order of three jars), have been hugely popular of late.

“I’ve had a lot of calls or requests for those, because it’s just a small something they can send with a note like: I’m thinking of you; I’m sorry for your loss; I can’t wait to get together with you again or hug you again. It’s been a lot of that,” she says. “It’s like the next best thing when you can’t hug somebody or really spend time with somebody.” stemandthistlefloral.com

A customdesigned menu by Fingers in Ink

You’re Invited

Nicole Fingers started out on a different career track, but couldn’t ignore the tug of her inner artist whispering that her heart just wasn’t in electrical engineering. She began to dabble in designing invitations, and in 2002 opened a brick-and-mortar shop in Lyon Park appropriately dubbed Fingers in Ink, which specializes in fine stationery.

“I did a few friends’ invitations,” she says of her early days. “And then when it was time for me to get married, I did my own invitations, and everything came together. It was like, This is what I need to do.”

While artistry is a big part of what drew her to the business, she also loves meeting people during the happiest moments of their lives. She’s seen her most devoted clients through weddings, home purchases, birth or adoption announcements and graduation parties.

“I call those the Fingers in Ink Lifers,” says Fingers, who grew up in Oxon Hill, Maryland. “I’ve seen them through everything. One client’s daughter turned 16 last November. I’ve done all her invitations since she turned 1. It’s just a great progression to see her turn into such a delightful young lady.”

Nicole Fingers

Social invitation suites, which include the invitation and outer envelope with return address, start at $3.95 each. Wedding invitation suites start at $9.25 each and include the invitation, outer envelope with return address, and reply card with envelope. Prices can go up from there based on paper quality, printing method and embellishments.

Fingers, who lives about a mile from her shop, says one big misconception about her craft is that anyone with a home printer can do it. Clients sometimes want a certain pattern or color incorporated, and there’s a lot of math involved—for instance “when you’re trying to get five invitations on a 20-by-24 sheet of paper.” Plus, not everyone is born with an artistic eye.

She jokes that she wears black every day so that her outfits don’t interfere with the vivid hues in her designs.

“I love to work with color and patterns and textures and layers,” she says. “I know my clients don’t always have that aesthetic. I often infuse a little bit of me in everything I do so that you can say, ‘Oh, Nicole definitely designed that.’” fingersinink.com