Happy Spring! I am very ready for some warmer weather (New Haven is still freezing), so I'm hoping the official arrival of spring will result in warmer temperatures. Fresh flowers are such a joy - and when I was home in Colorado over spring break, I indulged my obsession of flower arranging. I picked up a delightful assortment of blossoms at the supermarket. They were lovely....And they called to me....
- Spray roses = $8
- Snap Dragons = $8
- Cool green blooms (not sure what they're called) = $4
- Red berries = $4
- Daisies = $5
- White roses & baby's breath = from my sweet boyfriend
- Baby daffodils = from our garden
My rules for buying flowers -
They must strike me as being especially pretty
They must be very fresh
They should be a good deal (I usually get them from the grocery store)
The easiest way to make a lovely arrangement is to get all the same color of flower or all the same type of flower
I always try to stick to a pretty explicit color palate (e.g. pink/yellow/white/cream, red/white/blue, etc.)
The first thing I do after returning with my spoils is find vases for them. I usually try a few before I'm happy. If the arrangement is going to be involved, I stick with a simple vase. If the flowers are on the simpler size, I tend to use more exciting vases.
Before doing any arranging, I set the flowers in the vase(s) - just to see how they look.
Sometimes this is *almost* all I do with flowers. A lot of flowers look lovely by themselves in a vase. If I like how they look by themselves, I simply chop off the bottoms of the flowers at an angle -to the desired length, and put them in the a vase full of water.
If I'm not wholly satisfied with a simple arrangement, I decide what shape of arrangement I want to make. Then I figure out which vase I want to fill - and choose the flowers I want in the center of my arrangement. An old art teacher told me to build my paintings out from the center; that's what I do when I arrange flowers, too. I start with the nucleus and carefully build from there - adding blossoms as I go. I try to use an odd number of each type or color of flower to keep things looking natural.
I alternate between different flowers and sizes. I try to pay attention to the shape of the arrangement, and do a lot of bundling - with rubber-bands and twine - to keep things nice and tight.
When I have a nice bundle, I put the flowers in my vase, and add loose blossoms and leaves around the edges until the vase is comfortably full.
I filled 7 vases!
A few of my favorite flowers - and a few more helpful tips for arranging flowers at home.
Ahhh.
I love Spring!
