Sunday, July 10, 2011

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.

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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.]

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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.

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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.

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

Part 3 - a one-sided arrangement using floral foam

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8 comments:

  1. very pretty. I love flowers too.

    megan
    craftycpa.blogspot.com

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  2. Great post! I've got to get me some of that tape. I love having fresh flowers in the house but can't ever arrange them in the way I would like. This would help. Thanks!

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  3. Your wedding flowers were beautifully done.

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  4. I love the tape trick and use this when I properly arrange flowers to give away. Most of the time I just stick my flowers in a vase and let them lay how they lay. Your post is very helpful and very coherent for the early hour.

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  5. Lovely flowers! I enjoy creating flower arrangements as well. I always have fresh flowers in my home, they are an inexpensive delight!

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  6. Totally unrelated to this post - I see you are the winner of the Design Start contest - so exciting! Congrats!

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  7. What a clever idea! thanks for sharing, Catherine. have a lovely weekend.


    hugs,
    Lelanie

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