Flower Arranging, Three Ways - Part 1

Most of the time when I put the kids [and husband] to bed at night my plans of staying up later washing dishes, working on projects and writing blog posts disappear rather quickly as I fall asleep myself. So sometimes I get up in the middle of the night to do those things, or just to enjoy the quiet and a few moments of quasi alone time. Although blog posts written between 2 and 4 AM can be rather... interesting. We'll see how this one turns out!

I love flowers! I have heard it's been clinically proven that flowers make people (including men) happy. I wouldn't doubt it! I love the look, the smell, the feel. It's a multi-sensory experience.

I first got started in "proper" floral design when I got married. I bought a book from the craft store I worked in at the time and, with the help of my mother-in-law's business license, bought fresh flowers from the local wholesaler, made my own bouquet and boutonnieres for the my groom and the groomsmen. I loved it and surprisingly it helped me relax [a little] the night before the big day.

After that I started doing floral design at the craft store, but moved out of state after a few months for my husband's school. While there I took a floral design class just for fun at the local university. I loved it so much and took the class twice so I could do different designs for the holidays during each semester. From there I got my own business license and started arranging flowers for small weddings. It was so much fun but got rather difficult after having kids so I've only done a couple weddings since then. I still love it and jump at every chance I have to arrange flowers.

Now, on to the arranging.  Unfortunately I wasn't too good about getting photos of each step.  I usually work fast with flowers and want to get them back in to water as soon as possible.  Hopefully everything will make sense anyway!

My husband brought a huge bag full of flowers home from work one day. If I had ordered the flowers myself and planned what I was going to do before hand it would have been a little bit different, but this time I just used what he brought.

We’ll start with a simple arrangement of peonies in a low glass vase.

Use water-proof tape (found at craft supply stores) to make a grid across the top of the vase. [You can also use a floral "frog" or foam for fresh flowers if your vase is not clear.]

Add some foliage first, if you have it. The peonies I received had long stems of leaves so I cut those off (at an angle) and crisscrossed the stems in the vase to create supports for the peonies.

Then add the flowers, cutting the stems to the right length and spacing them out fairly evenly. [Odd numbers of flowers generally look more pleasing to the eye than even numbers, but I had four peonies so I used them all.] Add a little more foliage to fill it out.

Next, Part 2, arranging with a tall glass vase.

Part 3 - a one-sided arrangement using floral foam

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