On The Ninth Day of Christmas, Nature Gave to Me...

An easy floral arrangement to rival your Christmas tree.
(Continued from last Christmas. If you want to check the other eight days, check my blog history from last December right here!)

Flowers are my passion. They are the easiest and most beautiful way to decorate your home any time of the year.  And floral arranging is a lot easier than you think!  Just follow the simple rules and a regular, store-bought bouquet can be a wonderful addition to your Christmas table.  NO MORE  ONE CUT AND STICK IN A VASE!

1.  Pick your vase.  If you have a tall vase with a smaller opening, that will work best.  It allows the flowers to stay tightly packed and, more likely to stay in the position you want them to. If you have a shorter vase or one with a wide opening, a floral frog is a great tool to use.  I wanted to decorate with a vintage milk glass vase, which you can see has a very wide opening. So I enlisted the help of a floral frog.

2. Separate out your flowers from the bouquet.  There are several categories for flowers and a specific order they are added when you are arranging.

Focus Flowers:  Usually roses, gerbera daisies, large mums, hydrangea, lilies. Whichever flowers are the biggest (and the least plentiful) in the bouquet are the focus flowers.

Roses and Large Mums

Secondary Flowers:  Most often, these flowers have 2-3 stems included in the bouquet. They are usually alstromeria or carnations.  Secondary flowers can also be of the TALL variety: lisianthus, delphinium, snapdragons, statice, liatrus, stock, etc. 

Alstromeria in
red, white and yellow
White carnations

Pomps:  These are the most plentiful in the bouquet (and usually the cheapest).  There will be several stems. They are usually mum-type flowers with multiple heads on a stem.  They fill the space quickly.

Kermit Pomps (green)
Multi-stem Mums (red)

Filler and Greens:  Filler flower is usually babies breath.  There may be another small blossom type flower or berries included. Wax flower is another popular filler flower, along with Queen Anne's Lace.  Just like the name suggests, it's used to fill in the spaces left when you're at the ending stages of arranging.

Greens are just as they sound;  anything that is leafy and green.  These are usually placed in the arrangement first to give it stability and you build around them.  But since very few greens are included in store-bought bouquets, and it's not nearly enough to create a stable base, I always add them last.

Babies Breath (white)
Hypericum Berry (often in Holiday bouquets)

Various Evergreen branches

3.  Start arranging.  You want the flowers to be at varying heights throughout the arrangement, otherwise it will just look like a blob of flowers! The best way to do this is to hold the flower up against the base of your table (or where the base of the vase is) and make a cut on the stem where it will stick up out of the base at the height you want.  Cut long and stick it in the vase to see if it's at the right height.  Always better to cut too long!

Measure the flower to
the base of the vase or
table top

Start with the focal flowers first.  Ideally, you want them in odd numbers (in stems of 3s or 5s) to create balance through the arrangement;  at varying heights of short, medium and tall.  But unfortunately, store bought flowers don't always follow the rule, so you have to improvise! I had 3 red roses, one white rose and the two large mums originally, but used some of the roses in another arrangement I needed. So, here's what I had left.  Two roses opposite sides at a short height and medium height.  And two large mums at opposite sides and medium height.

Focal flowers first

Next, add in the secondary flowers again at varying heights opposite of what's been added already.  If you don't have a focal flower at the tallest height in the arrangement in the center of the arrangement, a secondary flower should fill that role.  You can see how the yellow alstromeria is quite a bit higher than the other flowers and it's in the center of the arrangement to draw the eye up. Make sure you are looking at the arrangement from ALL ANGLES. Walk around the arrangement to see that it's balanced from all sight lines and the flowers are equally distributed. Even stoop down to view the vase at table level and add a few flowers at the base of the vase.

Alstormeria added
to fill in spaces
around focal flowers

Pomps and multi-stem flowers are added next.  Anything added in this step and beyond begins to fill in holes in the arrangement.  Keep these flowers at the medium to low range in height.

Green pomps and multi-stem
carnations are now added.

Lastly, the filler flower and greens are added. Since I only had one stem of berries to add, I made them quite tall to balance out the arrangement and to be seen. 

Berries are added to be seen.

Next is the Babies Breath.  It should be stuck in at varying heights at places where there are large holes in the arrangement.  Keep it low to medium in height.  It should be tight to the arrangement.

Babies Breath added

Finish it off with the remaining greens.  If you have tall evergreen branches, those can be kept taller and stuck in the middle/sides of the arrangement. If you have fern-like greens, cut those short and stick in the base of the arrangement to give it fullness around the vase. Greens can be cut in half and individual stems can be pulled apart for shorter lengths.

I had very loose, leafy evergreens.  I added them
throughout the arrangement, making sure to
give the base fullness first, and then kept the
remaining greens tall to fill out the arrangement.

Here's the final product on display on my Christmas table! 

Remember, even after you think you're done, you can still make changes as you look at the arrangement. I don't think I've ever made an arrangement that I haven't "touched up" a few days after I have finished.  You just notice things with fresh eyes after you've walked away a few times! It's really NBD!

Most of all, don't be intimidated by flower arranging. The more you do it, the easier it gets! 

HAVE FUN and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

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