How To Make a Dreamy Arrangement
Arranging flowers sounds fun and relaxing until you gather some beauties and get overwhelmed with where to start! I have some simple tips to help you get the ball rolling and make your beautiful flowers shine in the way they were meant to!
Tip 1: Have a mix of textures, shapes, and sizes.
Unless you are making a bouquet from a straight bunch of flowers (ie: a dozen roses), it’s helpful to have a mix of textures, shapes, and sizes to create interest, texture, and depth to your arrangement.
Tip 2: Start with a focal, a filler, a spike and a foliage. While these are not required to have a beautiful arrangement, I find that bouquets with these 4 types of ingredients are always my favorite! A focal flower is your feature flower (such as ranunculus, peonies, sunflowers, and dahlias). A filler flower is another flower type that will complement your focal (such as zinnias, cosmos, feverfew, and rudbeckia). A spike flower is a flower that has multiple flowers on a single stem one stacked on the next (such as snapdragon, larkspur, and delphinium). A foliage is any type of green leafy stem (such as varieties of mint, shrubs, and eucalyptus). If you don’t have all of these components, don’t worry! You can still make an incredible arrangement if you’re missing one.
Tip 3: Design with odd numbers. Using an odd number of each ingredient helps to create balance throughout your arrangement. For example, 3 focal blooms, 5 filler blooms, 5 spike flowers, and 3 foliage.
Tip 4: Vary the heights of your ingredients. For example, if you have 3 focal stems do not place them all at the same height. Have one high, one mid, and one low in your arrangement.
Tip 5: Don’t add too much color. Try to stick to 1-3 colors in your arrangement. I like to choose one primary color and 1-2 accent colors that complement the primary color of the arrangement.
Tip 6: Start with the foliage. I find it is always easiest for me to start with at least one stem of foliage and then build around that.
Tip 7: Make your arrangement taller than you think. Ideally, you want the height of your arrangement to be 1.5x the height of your vase. You can put together a beautiful blend of flowers, but if they’re just peeking above the throat of the vase, they don’t shine to their full potential.
Tip 8: Don’t sweat it! Flowers are meant to bring joy and peace. If you are stressing over making the perfect arrangement following all of “the rules” then you’re missing the point. The more you practice, the more naturally it becomes and then arranging flowers is a relaxing and happy part of your week!
I hope these tips help give you the confidence to get started when you find yourself with a garden full of flowers screaming to come inside!
Please reach out with any other arranging questions you may have, I’d love to help!
Shelby
