Floral Design Class: Hand-tied Bouquet

This week we got to practice some more bouquet making and we got to bring our own flowers in.  I found these at Trader Joe's and I'm pretty happy with them because it's been a few days now and the flowers still look alive and lovely. 




We had the closing ceremony for our Secret Pal exchange at work, so I had a little left over to make my gift recipient a little tussy-mussy.

Random Arrangements

The following are pictures of random arrangements I did with leftover flowers from classes and random presents.



The following was a present for my god-sister.  I went on a hunt for those tulips, and let me tell you that that hunt was not fun.

Weekend Farmer's Market: Gerberas and Carnations

I make it a habit to visit the farmer's market every weekend to buy some fresh veggies and to check out any flowers.  I'm not sure what farm I keep buying from because they don't have a poster or banner up, but they have had some really beautiful and reasonably priced flowers for sale.  For some reason a white, yellow, and pink color palette really appealed to me that day because I picked up bunches of carnations and gerbera daisies and made my way home.  I was able to get three different arrangements out of the bunches I purchased and my home was very colorful and cheery for the rest of the week.  I did a little free-standing, no foam table arrangement.  I also added some gyp and alstroemeria.  Let me just say that I never can get alstroemeria to cooperate with me and it never lasts long.  I have classmates who say that they can get theirs to last for a week and on day five mine all fall apart.  Any tips?  Maybe I mixed them with some other flower that repels them.  Who knows.  The one thing that I learned from this weekend was that I need to buy less mass and focal point flowers and more green and filler.  I get so excited by the big, showpiece flowers that I buy too many and they just overpower each other and end up getting squashed together.

Here's another view of it sitting on the coffee table.

I also got to practice a foam design at home.  This was the first time using foam outside of the floral design workshops and I'd say it was positive.  I still don't really like using foam, but it's definitely needed sometimes.

And last, I stuck whatever I had left in a vase and called it a day.