CREATE: Flower Arranging
::CREATE:: week 4
Flower Arranging
Here are five commonly acknowledged benefits of fresh flowers:
1. They make you home smell better
2. Flowers can spark creativity
3. They promote relaxation
4. Flowers improve your décor
5. They boost your mood
Bringing fresh flowers into your home is one of the easiest and most effective ways to instantly elevate the environment into a space that inspires and calms an anxious mind. They’re a wonderful gift from God, a reminder of the grace and artistry of our Creator.
I love to arrange flowers into pretty arrangements for my home and to give as gifts. The process of putting them together is a fun way to exercise my creativity and the end result is always gratifying. It’s hard to go wrong with flower arranging. It’s really up to personal preference. However, there are a few tips and tricks that are helpful so I’ve made the video, below, showing how I made three different kinds of arrangements.
Some useful items to help you with arranging flowers are: a variety of bowls and vases, both tall and short, glass beads or marbles, floral frogs, floral foam, tape, sharp scissors clippers, floral food (usually comes with flowers), and your imagination!
Hint: thrift shops are a great place to stock up on vases. When you haven’t spent a lot of money on them, they’re easy to give away!
To help your flowers last longer: remove any leaves that will be in the water, cut stems at an angle, and change the water in the vase every couple of days. Also, keep the arrangement away from heating vents and direct sunlight.
Pinterest is my favorite place to find ideas for floral arrangements. I have a board for this purpose that you’re welcome to check out.
“Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem or saying a prayer.” –Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Here are the flower arrangements that are included in the video:
You might notice in the video, when I first put this arrangement together, the roses were still closed tightly. This picture was taken a day later. The roses opened up and filled out the arrangement. A little extra time and the use of warm water in the bowl were both helpful towards coaxing these roses to open up.
More tips...
· When hosting a party, some areas to think about adding fresh flowers to are: the living room and/or entry, the dining room, and the bathroom.
· Try buying 3-4 varieties of flowers and have fun playing around with different textures and colors. Costco and farmer’s markets are my favorite places to shop for lower priced flowers.
· Add large, heavy flowers first and fill in with smaller, lighter blooms.
· Use flowers with various shapes and stem lengths. An opposite approach, that’s quite elegant, is to make a tightly packed, uniform arrangement using one type of flower.
· Make your bouquet taller than its container by about one and a half times. Also, make the width balance the height.
Don’t wait for someone else to buy you flowers. Treat yourself! Surround yourself with beauty and enjoy the gifts that God has so graciously given.
If you want to share pictures of the pretty flower arrangements you make, how about posting it to Instagram, using the hasthtag: #renewflowers. It will be fun to see what you create!
For today's PDF, click HERE
What are your favorite flowers? Can you think of someone who could use a little encouragement? Maybe some flowers would make their day! Let's talk about anything you like today in the comments.
