Creating an arrangement can look easy and fun.
And your right, it can be easy and fun if you have an eye for detail and a little bit of patience!
If you are thinking of DIYing your centrepieces for a special event coming up, you probably guessed (and you are right again!) it is a great way to save money.
But the biggest thing to remember is, it is not a great way to save time!
There are reasons why florists exist (I will be saving this for another blog lol) but hey, if you are on a budget and you enjoy creating, by all means! Have that glass of wine or cup of tea and make your own arrangements a day or two before your event.
But of course, there are a few tips that we have for you so you don't get too overwhelmed!
In the photo below, you see what we call the recipe.
This recipe consists of a couple of stems of greenery (boxwood), a couple stems of a filler (alstroemeria), something to add height (stocks), focal flowers (roses), and a few stems of something fun or interesting (lysimachia) .
We follow this type of recipe for almost every simple centrepiece that we make.
Read along the rest of this blog to see how you could make this simple centrepiece!
First step is to take off any leaves that will sit below the water line. This will help with putting stems in easily (as well as taking them out if you need to adjust) and most importantly, this will help your flowers last longer!
Once everything is cleaned up and ready to go, we start with putting the greenery in the vase to create a frame for the flowers to sit in.
This helps to define the space between the flowers as well as to add texture.
We used one stem of boxwood, cut into 5 pieces (one bunch goes far!) but you can use whatever greenery you like best. Salal and madrona are also great local options!
Now its time to add your fillers.
Fillers will help you create the shape you want: keeping them long and out to the sides will help create a long, more flowing arrangement. You can also cut the stems shorter (this goes for greenery as well) and have the tops of the filler closer to the mouth of the vase for a more compact look.
We love to use alstroemeria for a pretty and inexpensive flowering filler.
Other local flowering fillers would be spray roses, spraymums and more.
It just all depends on the time of year you are making you arrangements in.
The great thing about alstroemeria is not only is it an affordable flower, it is also available all year round! Check out one of our recent blog posts at Trommel Greenhouses to see where we get our alstroemeria.
In these photos, the alstroemeria is on the tight side but it is still so pretty! We wish we remembered to take a photo of this arrangement when the alstroemeria opened up... next time!
Next is to add in height.
Snap Dragons or Stocks are great flowers to add in arrangements because they create a more visually interesting piece by bringing in different heights to your arrangement.
You want to place them so they point away from each other to balance the arrangement.
We like to add in Snap Dragons if we are going for a more whimsical look, and stocks for if the arrangement is a more romantic look. Or we add in stocks simply because they smell AMAZING.
If you haven't yet, check out Ravanek Greenhouse Part I to see all the different colours
Snap Dragons and Stocks come in!
Now the for the main part of any kind of arrangement, the focal flower!
You always want to make sure you have at least one type of focal flower in anything you create.
Focal flowers are bigger blooms that will draw the eye and ground your piece!
Roses, large ranunculus, peonies, gerberas, dahlias are just some examples of a focal flower.
Generally, you should use odd numbers (3, 5, 7... roses) and place them somewhat symmetrically throughout the arrangement.
The great thing about working with local flowers is that when ranunculus season is ending, peony season is starting. Then when peony season starts to end, dahlia season begins!
And of course we have the classic rose, gerbera and disbud mums available all year round.
This makes it so easy for us to create and fill our wholesale orders with locally grown flowers any time of the year!
This is our favourite part:
Adding in at least one fun flower or texture! This way you get to make your arrangement extra special by adding whatever fun flower, filler or greenery you come across.
This is a decision we always make the day of creating arrangements in our wholesale cooler.
It keeps things fun and creative, and no matter what, there is always something that fits the bill available locally grown!
In this arrangement we used lysimachia because it is one of our FAVOURITES with it's cute, flowing shape and tiny, pretty flowers all over.
Choosing lysimachia for this arrangement added more height and texture, as well as it brought in a more whimsical look compared when we didn't include it.
It really is crazy how one flower changes a whole arrangement!
And this is why this final step is the most important. The first steps to creating an arrangement seems to leave you with quite a few options, but when it comes down to the time of year, you are really only left with a couple flowers or fillers to choose from so when it comes to adding in the fun flowers or fillers, this gives you a variety of options making your piece different and special to you!
Now that you have followed all of those steps, you are done! This is a great guide to creating your own centrepieces for any event you may have coming up. Just remember these tips when placing your order and when you are creating your arrangement!
Thank you for following along! And we hope you have fun creating,
Rachel & Miriah