Easy Flower Arranging- breaking down the big one

For the past several years, I have been helping with an art auction that benefits the University of Montevallo scholarships for art students.

Part of my job includes the floral centerpeice. I'm no florist, but I'm not afraid to cut some stems and stick them in oasis foam.

This years them was shades of purple and gold. Since purple is a great color to find a variety of flowers,it was perfect for the shades of purple!


It doesn't look like my original inspirations arrangements, but I still love to look to Pinterest to find great inspiration!



I assumed everyone breaks down a large arrangement into smaller arrangements after an event was over. Flowers are not made to live in oasis for long. However, some folks seem surprised that I would do that. I guess the assumption is that once you go to the trouble of making an arrangement, you would want to keep it in that form.

Here are the flowers I was working with... the theme of the event was shades of purple and gold, our school colors. There are also to small cabbages from my yard in the arrangement.

So,  I thought I would share two of my arrangements from the larger arrangement. For tips on how I generally do arrangements check out this post HERE! And to see my inspiration for this year's arrangement, check out this post HERE.

The spray roses, caspia, and a purple cabbage from my yard

Since making the arrangement for this event for the University of Montevallo was not something I would bill my hourly for and the container was one from my antique space, the only cost was the flowers, which came in at under $80! That's a lot of look for 80 bucks!

Lilies, caspia, and some spray roses

The key to both of these arragments is to make one type of flower the stare of the arrangement and the rest as the back-up dancers. Each arrangement have different stars, so they relate, but do not look like the original arrangement or like each other!

When re-arranging flowers that have been in a less than ideal environment, remember to re-cut the stems and change the water frequently. You don't drink three day old water, why would your flowers want to either. To prolong their great good looks, keep them away from direct sun and heat sources, like the TV or other heat producers.

small arrangements- flowers for today's photoshoot

Today was a l-o-n-g work day on a photo shoot!  From loading up furniture at 7:15 in the AM to leaving the lake at 7:00PM and arriving back home around 9:00 PM. As glamour as photo shoots sound- fluffing pillows and making things pretty. It is also hauling furniture into the house, climbing on bunk beds to arrange pillows, stretching beyond you comfort level on a ladder to hang something quite high in a stairwell and climbing stairs over and over again. Not to mention, endlessly nit-picking a space through the lens of the images to check for everything from stray threads to how open an open door should so as to read as a door and welcoming, but not look unintentionally left open, or so open you do not realize it is a door.

It is mentally and physically challenging. Thankfully, I was with great folks!

Here are some of the small flowers arrangements I did for the shoot.

Easy arrangement of hypericum, spider mums, and hydrangea in a stemless wine glass. The key to the arrangement in to use a little floral tape to give the flowers some structure.

Detail of the hypericum and mums.               

 

Simple arrangement of white lilies in a small necked vase with some greens for the yard. The key to these arrangements are something my sister taught me long ago about flowers... 

you cannot be afraid to cut the stem!

Easy flower arranging- from the grocery store

Pre-made "bouquets" are an easy and inexpensive way to get an assortment of flowers. Combining them with simple greenery from your yard and finding a little help in the produce section, can take pre-made to...  if not professional, at least pro-sumer. (pro-sumer is my new favorite word. I found it when I bought a new camera and I've been waiting to use it in a sentence!)

For a photo shoot this week with Marianne Strong Interiors, I picked up two "bouquets", a bag of peppers, some sunflowers, and spray roses from the grocery store and used the some yard shrubbery for four mix-and match-arrangements.

The 5 keys to flower arranging for me...

1. don't be afraid to cut the stems and don't be afraid to re-cut.
2. pick the height and the width and add two flowers to mark the size
3. group small flowers in three's to make a bigger impact.
4. use a cascading flower or greenery to cover the rim of the vase.
5. vary the greenery... and save money by picking it from the yard!

As seem in my drawing below for building a planter, the same principles work for flowers. The tall piece, the side piece for width and a cascader to cover the vase edges.

Here are my results~


The peppers were added to an all white and green arrangement to change it up a bit and make it more "kitchen-y".

White and green bouquet from the grocer was divided into two arrangements this one is more green and features a pink tinged ornamental cabbage. The other is a simple green and white- both for nursery flowers.

This is the largest arrangement. It incorporates the greenery from the bouquets, spray roses, sunflowers and the mini peppers. The peppers are on bamboo skewers. The flowers are held upright with a crisscross on tape over the vase before the flowers were added.

centerpieces without flowers

I was asked again this year to do the centerpieces for the University of Montevallo homecoming luncheon for 300 people. The theme was "proud past, bring future". In special events committee meetings, we discussed a connections to the buildings- old and new. Below is my quick concept drawing from the meeting and the final outcome.



This is the concept drawing with a brick path to reference the brick sidewalks on campus (the old) and the new promenade into town. Buildings are old and new structure.

In the finish product, I used wheat grass, organic and hydroponic, with polymer clay brick path and building images with blueprints backs, cut with deckle edge scissors.

Scaring up Easy Autumn Floral Arrangements

Autumn is the best time for easy flower arrangements... even for those with the least amount of gardening experience. If you have a tree or a shrub near by, you most likely have a floral arrangement moments away. Sine floral arrangements do have have to be flowers, you can use leaves, bare branches, berries, and grasses.

The one- two- three of floral arrangements-

ONE~ choose your tallest spiky pieces for the center- no more that twice the height of the vase should extend beyond the vase.

TWO~ pick something from the outdoors that drapes in order to cascade over the edge of the vase

THREE~ Place a medium length branch (no more than one times the height of the vase should extend beyond the vase) , at a 60 degree angle to your work table. This piece is your "fill line" and your guide for the foliage extention area.


So your one- two- three formula will look like this to the left!



Now... what to choose!  Here are my picks for leave, berries and grasses! *Please know that none of the images below are my images and I do not have any claim on them as my own. They are used as illustration on for educational purposes.

Leaves-

7-bark hydrangea ( also known as oak leaf hydrangeas)- great reds to purples

maple- yellows, oranges and reds

junipers- adds lacy greenery and sometimes they have an ashy-blue berry


Berries-
Oak- if your acorns fall off before the leaves turn the color you want, you can glue them back in or wire them to the branch... discreetly!

Beautyberry- fantastic purple berries. If you grow them yourself, please leave some berry branches from your local birds to have some variety in their winter diet.

Nandina- if you do not have pets of small children (the berries can fall off and make very sick tummies)

Grasses

Cattails- once dried will keep for years!


Red fountain grass- great purple color

Easy floral arrangements

Here are some photos of my recent easy floral arrangements from yesterday's photo shoot.

This photo of white roses was a easy grouping of palest peach to cream. Pretty roses made prettier with a few photo stylist tricks.

1. Start my trimming the end of the roses about a 1/2" and place in warm water. This will begin to open the roses.
2. Grab the hair dryer and turn it on, to the coolest of slightly warm setting, to blow the rose petals open. The warmth will aid the wind in opening the petals.
3. Re-cut the stems so that the base of the flower is and 2-3 inches above the vase. The larger the vase the longer the stem- this vase was about 5-6 inches tall.
4. add greenery from the yard- whatever is the greenest without and brown marks or holes.

easy rose arrangement

Contemporary arrangement-
I like a bold color combo in my contemporary arrangements. I also see inspiration from the Japanese Ikebana tradition of simplicity and scale. In this arrangement below, I used purple, fuchsia and lime green. Here's the steps-

1. Choose your color inspiration and consider the two colors close together on the color wheel and one that is opposite.
2. In your "clean lines" vase, group the colors together and look at scale.
3. place your largest color flower, or group of flowers in the vase, then the second color and lastly the third.
4. to keep the lines clean and visually uncluttered, I wrapped the stems of the gompherna in a host leaf, since they looked messy. Messy tends to not work in a contemporary arrangement.
For this arrangement the purple hydrangea is the dominate, followed by the hosta leaves then the gompherna. I also looked at the pattern story that this tells- mass of lightly patterned purple, smooth lines of the green and dots of the fuchsia.

The third arrangement was just greenery from the yard- cheap and easy! It included, boxwood, ivy, juniper, and ligusterum. Because easy plant has a markedly different texture, I  grouped them for their textures- like a landscape of trees. Boxwood in the center, ligusterum and ivy for height and juniper is the filler.