A Victorian-inspired Rounded Floral Design | Floristry Tutorial

Hi everyone and welcome to my place. Today I am here to help solve a few issues from all of those who have requested designs of the past. I'm talking Victorian, I'm talking Edwardian, I'm talking about you girls that live in big houses that need big designs, who want something that is Victorian inspired or from a time long since gone. I did these containers ages and ages ago and I just want you to know that this is the last time you will ever see them because I have nothing in my house that would actually suit this kind of floral arranging that I'm going to do but in saying that I might just have to take that back because I've just had a vision of what this might look like in the spring filled with blossom so I might just not do that at this stage but anyway, Victorian arranging. I love it and if you have a big home as I said then big is the way to go. The rule of thumb is one and a half times the height or the width of the container so this would be massive to the ceiling. Well they had big homes and that Queen Victoria, I think that she was pretty clever with what she did and how she kept everybody in line all those years ago. Everything was very constrained and it was tight and as the times went past they got a little bit looser and formal but they were also tight and these containers the focus would have been on the decorating on the outside and then they would have picked the flower that was going to be suitable for whatever occasion. The other reason that I want to do what I'm going to do today is I want to bring back into vogue the colour mauve. Now did you know that mauve was actually a colour that was invented and it was a young guy, a scientist who was about 18 years old I think he was, and he was trying to synthesise a drug to help get rid of malaria, some kind of quinine and what happened was there was a residue at the base of his lotions and potions pot or whatever he was doing and that's where the colour mauve came from. So through the Victorian era it was called the mauve period. Oh it's fascinating. I've done some notes so if you're interested in further read I've just cut and pasted and put some information into there but the mauve was this beautiful colour that they absolutely loved and I managed to find these and look this is just two bunches and all these were like cheapest chips and I thought oh that'd be perfect for what I want to do today. So I'm just bringing the two together and sort of getting these as even as I can and then I'm just going to put a cable tie around the top of these just to keep them together because I don't want them moving. Now they were also they were very clever the way that they did their designing and we can be even cleverer than what they were so instead of doing all of the wire and stuff that they would have put into there we're just going to do the bunch like this. Now the other thing I need to tell you is see that there have a look in there that's a very very small cavity in which to get or opening in which to get a lot of flowers into. I don't actually know how they did it but they were very very very clever but I've got another way of doing it so anyway there's the mauve and I actually think that you know we don't see many people wearing mauve and I don't understand why. Okay so they would have their little posy like so and that there's just not quite in the way but I just want this to be as evenly round or as evenly round as I can get it so they would have their flowers or whatever they had gathered and they also liked to because they were into hunting and gathering they also liked to introduce ferns and lovely new things that they had never seen before because don't forget that they were into the hunting all around the world and bringing things back to their homes or into Vogue in their gardens and their orangeries etc. Now all of that could just go into there but I know that that's going to fall so my trick on how to get this all to work nicely together is to do that. This is from baking paper so I've just used that and then with the ferns I'm just going to splay those out like so. I should be really doing this like the Victorians did it which was all very neat and tidy and then look at that it's not going to fall and it is a design but there's something just not quite right here hold on wait a minute I've got to get this sitting nice and even. I know what I've done oh stupid me it's a bit too tight in there. How's that for easy designing where the focus is on the container the eye comes up sees the lovely ferns and they would have all been sitting around and Persimmon or whoever he was who had discovered the fern would have been giving them a wee lecture about it and then it would have been displayed to titillate and to stimulate the eyes of the ladies of the court. I think this is fantastic I love this kind of designing I love the colour mauve I think it needs to come back into vogue and the focus is still on the vase and you've got the flowers at the top I call that the icing on the top of the cake. I hope you've enjoyed this and for those of you in your big homes looking for something that's going to suit the period of your home because this is what this is all about flowers to suit the period of the home I hope you've enjoyed that so that's the colour mauve the flowers and the foliages that they would have been finding and bringing back and then a focus onto a vase it's great love it see you again another day.