Designing Small Flower Arrangements

In this video we are going to do a miniature coordinating piece to this larger centerpiece. So if you're being a budget mixing master and you need to kind of ease back in some areas, this is a great little piece that can be used on round tables. And if you wanted to do if budget isn't a thing, this size is pretty on cocktail tables too. So that's up to you. If you've got little votives going around this centerpiece, I've used this particular container on round tables before. I think it fills out really nicely. So let's get started. We are working with spirea. These are Japanese ranunculus. This is called lux ranunculus. Little blushies. And I have just a pair since this is a smaller arrangement. I have a pair of these Clooney ranunculus in blush. So we're going to get started in the first layer by establishing the shape, the size, covering the rim of our container. This is our balance layer. So before we move on to any additional layer higher up, we want to make sure that this one is balanced both physically and visually. And since we're using these really light pieces, it's going to be more of a visual balance. When you start adding things like fruits and apples and things like that, it can actually physically get a little bit too heavy on one side. So anyway, let's get this base built. So you'll notice we have the long piece and medium piece of short piece. And if we put these two pieces together, you're going to get about the same length as this long piece. So this plays into that whole balance concept. We split it down the middle that we've got about the same amount on each side. And I'm going to just keep adding to get a little bit of fullness here since this is the only element that we are using in the base of this piece. I'm going to use quite a lot of it. I'll go around a few times to get it filled out. Usually as a rule, whenever you're thinking about how much to charge for things, I have a little bit of an internal menu. So in my mind, I have the $150 option, $75 option, $50 option. So that makes it easy whenever I'm working with a client and they have questions, I can direct from those products within my offerings. And then whenever it goes and it's time to purchase flowers, I know what my budget for flowers is and I work it backwards. I think I'd like to go since whenever it's on a larger table with a piece like this, it's good to have just an element that comes and swoops up a little bit. So you do have the illusion of it being a large piece, like this is of course a little bit larger, but this makes it a little bit larger. So proportion-wise, I want it to land right in this area. So I'm just going to do another branch on the back so that I cover that naked stem. Spyru just has leaves on one side of the stem. So I want it to be somewhere around here. And what I might need to do since I'm using so few ingredients in this arrangement, it's not going to stay where I put it right now because it's too tall. So I'm going to come back after I get some of these ranunculus in, have a little bit more stability there at the bottom, we'll add that back in. So I have to come back to the purpose of layer one here once we get through two, just to get a little bit more stability in there. Okay, so this is my piece I'm saving. So we're covering the mechanics, just camouflaging this tape. Even put some little naked or some stems that, you know, don't have a lot of foliage on them to create more structure whenever you're doing a minimal ingredient type of thing. I've taken just like chunks of branches and things like that and worked them low to act as a natural mechanics, natural stability in the arrangement. Now we go on to the second layer and this is where we create movement in the arrangement. These first few little pieces in here I am not counting. We're just going to put them in there to fill up a little bit of space. But once we start adding these ranunculus that have the bright eyes in them, we're going to be very purposeful about where we put them so that we create that movement and that interest in the arrangement. The purpose these flowers that we're putting in right now serve is more of the, you could call it the base layer if you wanted to, or just taking some color out to the ends of the arrangement. Goes along with establishing the shape and size. You'll notice in this arrangement we use the flower frog, how we work from the outside in. We're doing something a little bit similar here but as we're getting in closer we're really inserting the stems closer to the center of the arrangement. So in addition to this tape we have a nice grid of stems that's providing more support because there is no flower frog in here. So things have a tendency to wiggle around a bit more when you're just using tape. Same thing with chicken wire. Chicken wire is not super super stable mechanics piece, not as much as frogs or frogs used properly or oasis. So if I have a really dirt road kind of drive to get to a wedding, chicken wire is not my choice. I end up rearranging everything when I get there or using a lot of flowers to do something similar where we're just adding more stability in there. Okay, so now I'm going to start with these and I'm going to create an implied line. So I'm going to connect the dots. All these pretty little centers guide our eye through the arrangement in the middle frame. This big focal flower will lead our eye to the target. One thing about implied lines is that you get to draw a new shape each time you make an arrangement so it never gets boring or old. This one's naturally wanting to go this way so either I clip here so that I can use this anywhere or I have to go this way with most of it or else it'll just kind of wiggle around and want to go that way. Anyways, we're just going to clip so we don't have to worry about that. All right, let's see if we have enough stability in here yet to add this. It'd be much easier to stand up once we've got some other things in there. I'm taking a peek around, make sure there's a little bit of interest the whole way through the arrangement so whether you're sitting on, no matter what side you're sitting on, it has interest. Okay, let's add these. This is level three, the rest layers. This is giving our eye a point of focus. Since this is a smaller piece, we're just going to do one on the front and one on the back. The point of focus and interest on the sides will be the lux ranunculus. Now what we're going to do is fill in the foliage that we have here. Even some of this ranunculus foliage is pretty. I like how it's flat and so this would be really beautiful at coloring one of these focal flowers. I'll show you what I mean here. You have this pretty ranunculus here. You add this little bit of foliage. I'm going to close up over here. That covers your mechanics low that I was just seeing a few of them peek through, but it's also just setting apart this flower and giving it some contrast. It goes from pink to green, complementary colors. I'm going to echo this tongue branch that we put up here with polyranunculus to reinforce that choice. Since this one's wanting to wiggle around, I'm just going to use the branch above to provide some support so it can peek through. Here's another nice leaf for framing. This one though we could put a little bit higher just to add some volume in this area and some foliage interest. Then we'll look for another larger one to frame the ranunculus on the other side. You can layer flat leaves on top of each other for more emphasis. This one that I had wasn't quite big enough to really make an impact, so I've just layered another one under there. They work together to create a greater impact. Now I'm just looking, is there any spot if I squint and I think I'm looking for mechanics right now, is there any spot where I'm seeing mechanics pop through and I want to work to get those resolved and covered. I see one little spot down here. Since I've already framed on this section of the arrangement, I'm going to use spirea down in here. I don't want to lose the silhouette that I was creating with that. If I put this here, it could get maybe a little bit too heavy, so the little leaf is going to give us that touch of daintiness and more interest at the end there. These ranunculus were on the invoice at about $2. I wouldn't be surprised if they cost a little bit more. I feel like these may have been an upgrade to a regular ranunculus. Then I had three stems of the lux ranunculus and those come out to be about $6.50 a stem. Right there you're at about $18, $19.20, $21.22. This spirea is pretty pricey as well right now because it's imported from so far away. We're at about $25 and I think whenever we started I had a little bit of a hunch we'd probably be in the $75 range. That is where we are. After I make an arrangement like this, I usually step back for a minute or two, just kind of let it look. Then after I've had something to eat or drink, I'll come back and look at all of the arrangements again, see if there's anything I want to adjust or change about them. I think that in this arrangement, just a quick glance, I could see there being a little bit something more right here. Let me just borrow from this arrangement. It was just a little bit flat right here. If you can take your hand and put it on your arrangement and you're touching all the flowers at the same time, that's an indication that you need to either layer another flower on top or tug a flower out or push a flower in deeper. That's one of the things I see a lot whenever I'm helping people with an arrangement in person. If I can look at it and go like that, then we know it's flat. We need to add a little bit more depth there. That's what we've done with this ranunculus. When you add something here, it inevitably will change something on the opposite side. You have to take a quick peek there and see what was affected if I move it, if I angle it just a little bit different. I can catch a little bit of that center come through. Now it connects to my implied line on this side. It's actually working in our favor in both sides now. That's something to think about. You don't have to take it out right away and, oh, that wasn't the right place to put it. Just adjust it a little bit, change its face a little bit, and see if that doesn't resolve the concern that you might have. Then right here, I would love for this to be more up and down as opposed to this side. Let's see if we can just adjust this. Okay, perfect. Now that's adjusted and changed my shape just a little bit. I'm going to get these guys lined back up so that it covers that little naked branch. We are good to go. There you have it. Once you add your votives there, beautiful, beautiful centerpiece. For a head table, maybe you want to put this in between. Thanks so much for watching. We will see you soon.