Floral Design and Arranging

Krista · 2024-02-01T19:33:51+00:00

calico20hill I love hearing your tips for floral arrangement, Noni! This year I’m going to try to learn how to better display all the beautiful blooms from t...

MissyWeitzel

After entering my first show arrangement a couple weeks ago, I'm hooked and I'm excited to do a few for the upcoming midwest conference dahlia show next weekend. While working on my ideas I remembered all the Holly Chapple pillows I bought a couple years ago but haven't used because I don't really do big fancy arrangements often. I am using a big round one not pictured here and it's so much nicer than chicken wire - IF one of the shapes and sizes fits the vessel. Anyway, they're just 2 pieces that snap together and they won't rust like uncoated chicken wire and they don't have sharp edges to poke you either. I've been playing around with them and I love them and thought I would show them to you as another foam free arrangement alternative.

calico20hill

Where does one get those? They look very useful

Juliarugula

calico20hill looks like Amazon has them. You have to use “bouquet pillow cage” as a keyword search unless you want to search through a long list of floral throw pillows. 🤣🤣

MissyWeitzel

calico20hill I ordered directly from Holly's farm. 😊
https://hopeflowerfarm.com/products/holly-pillow-shipping-available

bloomhjelm

I liked this post with a simple question from the Florists subreddit. It asks only: "What is wrong with this?"

Maybe some of you with arranging experience will have some immediate reactions.

KitCMC

bloomhjelm it could use more dahlias 😉

blown_dry

bloomhjelm Color-wise, the theme is 'one of everything'. Usually it's good to have some color theory happening: complimentary colors from opposite sides of the color wheel to make one another pop, or pick a color or at least a color temperature and then have some neutrals to back it up. There's also no shape to it other than 'hemisphere'. Kinda seems like the 'bowl cut' of bouquet shapes. Now I feel I've been very mean to sweet little arrangement that never did me any harm!

MissyWeitzel

bloomhjelm not a florist but have been studying on my own for a few years. I'd say that more space (just negative space, foliage, or maybe even fillers) between the focal flowers would be great so each can be admired easily. You could likely have more impact using even fewer flowers. One thing that helped me start is to really look closely at the work of florists I admire - to study each little part of what they put together. One of my favorite designers to follow on Instagram is TJ McGrath. He focuses a lot on sustainable mechanics and many of his reels show him making arrangements from the beginning including getting the vessel ready before putting anything in. Also for really studying the color aspect of floral design, Ariella Chezar is amazing. I have several of her books and they include step by step pictures.

bloomhjelm

KitCMC hahaha. But seriously, I learned a couple things just from the comments on the original post. "Height should be 1-1.5x height of the vase." "Lily bloom will impede bloom of the rose." Etc.

MissyWeitzel

From Ariella Chezar's book 'The Flower Workshop'
She only used 5 focal flowers here, and in a line. The fruited branches play the part of foliage and filler beautifully.
This one is from her book 'Seasonal Flower Arranging' and like @blown_dry mentioned, this one is really playing up where the colors opposite each other on the color wheel are harmonious and create a beautiful contrast.

BackyardBouquets_17

MissyWeitzel
I love her style and reread/ study her book over and over again. This season I’m moving away from selling premade arrangements and selling diy buckets instead. I burned out last yr and didn’t even like putting together arrangements after awhile so I hope this way to be able to just play with styles and give em away. I’m not concerned about selling a lot of flowers and plan to have that take a back burner this yr and take a yr to do just what I love.

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