June is known for bringing joyous occasions to our otherwise everyday lives -- such as weddings and graduations. Along with these milestones come celebrations, and, of course, fancy decorated cakes and fresh floral bouquets.

Recently the Elders Program at the Ray Elm Children and Elders Center gave participants a chance to learn the intricacies of these art forms, courtesy of the staff at Turning Stone Resort and Casino.

First up was Gisella Lauro, manager of the Turning Stone Resort and Casino flower shop. Along with her crew, Gisella led a class on creating a European bouquet with fresh blooms and lots of greenery.

“European style is more like a clutch bouquet of very tight flowers together and they add a lot of greenery using bear grass,” she explained. “Bear grass is a very thin grass that swoops in front of the flowers. It just gives it a different look with a lot more texture. You see more flowers at the top rather than a mix of greens with the flowers.”

She also gave the elders some valuable advice about floral arrangements -- snip off the greenery.

“The greens don’t go in the water because that’s what kills your flowers. If you leave it in the water for a long time, bacteria will grow. A very important thing is to cut your flowers and to change the water every day.

“Always bleach your vases because, believe it or not, if you just do it (clean) with soap, the bacteria is still in there. Just use regular bleach. Let it soak in there with a little hot water for a few minutes and rinse it out. It kills all the bacteria.”

The flower shop at Turning Stone, which will celebrate three years in October, is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and specializes in weddings, parties, small functions, and arrangements for the resort such as the Lodge and Skana spa. The shop also has silk floral arrangements.

After the bouquets were created, it was Jennifer DiGiorgio’s time to decorate. This time the medium was cakes as several small, round vanilla desserts, hand-delivered by Food and Beverage chefs, were awaiting finishing touches.

Jennifer, who serves as the resort’s executive pastry chef, has been with Turning Stone for almost 13 years. She’s in charge of the bakery, which operates from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. Besides providing cake and desserts for the resort’s 22 outlets, her staff is responsible for a little bit of everything. “We love it and curse it at the same time,” she said. “We are really organized and always have to be in order to pull off what we do each day.”

Just to give an idea of how busy the team is, Jennifer said that last year, from May through September alone, the bakery at Turning Stone created 52 wedding cakes. That number jumps into the thousands if you include birthday, special occasion, and banquet cakes.

On today’s class menu, so to speak, was decorating using frosting tips. “I will explain what they do and show you a little bit about each of them,” she said. “Some of these I don’t even use because I don’t do a lot with tips (anymore). A lot more designs are freehand so some of this is like a dying art.”

Among Jennifer’s many tips for the novice decorators was a simple one -- take your time.

“The day before the party, bake the cake,” she advised. “Don’t do it the day of. It’s really difficult to make sure you have enough time or that it (the cake) has an opportunity to set up.”

She also said that she will often put cakes in the freezer once they have cooled to room temperature to firm up the cake’s texture and surface, and to make it easier to frost.