These are my birthday flowers; from my parents.
They're the Sam's Club variety spring bouquet of sweet pea, a rose, two pink carnations, a green daisy thing (Can't remember the actual name) and some fillers like purple carnation and some other kind of little purple flower that looks like a weed. (Sorry. I am not good at recalling all the flower names.)
But after a few days of them sitting on my table in the green florist vase, they just looked mashed together and as if they were languishing... so I had to arrange them. :)
I am not super good at flower arranging, like my girlfriends Susi and Lisi; who had a business arranging flowers for weddings not long ago. I had occasion to help them with the flowers for several weddings - including my own; and I picked up a few skills along the way - although not anywhere near theirs.
Anyway - so I picked out one of my favorite vintage vases, and a vintage "frog" - a heavy metal thingy that helps the stems stay in position.
Next I cut all the stems way down - from about 14 inches to only 6, 7, or 8 inches. First I stuck in the rose, the green daisy thing, and the pink carnation - now only 1 carnation, as Dodge snatched one when my back was turned and shredded it! Grrrrrr.......
Then, I used the sweet pea and the other little fillers to fill in the gaps; trimming the stems to lengths needed to get a proper shape; without long leggy things sticking up all over.
After that it still looked like it "needed" something, so I put a couple stems of white and lavender hyacinth in the gaps. Now, it was perfect and smelled wonderful, too.
I love Spring!
5 comments:
Wow! That is absolutely gorgeous! You are more talented than you let on, and I think you are a genius!
Arent those weedy things statice? The bouquet looks a lot better now. I love sweet peas and am going to plant some this year.
It looks GORGEOUS finished! I agree....the eye wants to see the bloom, not the stem. You should ALWAYS cut your stems to make the most of your store-bought arrangements. By the way, I believe I saw stock (the pink, leggy things), statice (Denise was right), and the green thing is a Spider Mum. :) LOVE the hyacinth. I've bought 3 potted ones so far this spring. When they're set in front of the grocery store, I just canNOT pass them by. They're the Harbinger of Spring. And, by gosh, do we need harbinging here in this state...
Oooh...sorry, not statice. ASTERS. Statice is this stuff: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.teleflora.com/images/vendors/00005557/giftguides/meaning/statice.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.teleflora.com/about-flowers/statice.asp&h=365&w=233&sz=25&tbnid=stohf1sUKn_jzM:&tbnh=281&tbnw=179&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dstatice%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=statice&usg=__ttmL338kiY3V4ZzZNuc535DlnnQ=&sa=X&ei=226KTaPEGpS6sQOol_mNDA&ved=0CCUQ9QEwAA
Thanks Sus! I knew you'd have the answers.
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