Learn How To Design Flowers in 10 Minutes

Hello, flower friends. If you're thinking that you can't do flowers, you're wrong. Everybody has the ability to make beautiful arrangements just like the florists do. You're just missing out on a few key techniques. I wasn't formally trained when I got started and when I learned these techniques, everything clicked. In today's video, I'm gonna share these techniques with you and by the end, you're gonna be able to make a beautiful arrangement that you're super proud of. I'm Ellen, florist and founder of Flower More and online community for flower lovers. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter, Flower Nerd. The link is in the description. The first thing you need to know is how to source your flowers. Look for locally sourced flowers either at your farmer's market or with a local farmer. If you're curious on how to find a local farmer close to you you can check out this online directory, localflowers.org. When you're choosing flowers, whether it's at the grocery store, a wholesale or even with a flower farmer, you wanna be looking for flowers that are closed but colored up. Here's an example. Here's a tulip and you can see that the bloom is closed but the bloom is also colored up. That means it's ready to use and it'll continue to open in your vase. This is the same tulip but totally open. This is what you wanna avoid if you see this in the store or any place you're buying flowers unless you wanna use those flowers that day for an event and you're not worried about the vase life because when flowers are totally open and totally colored up, it means that they're maybe at their peak or maybe moving towards being past their peak. Right tool, right job is important in flower arranging. This is not the right tool for cutting flowers. A regular scissors to cut your flowers, you're gonna do more damage to the stems if you use the proper tool. These are the Sabaton 1210. This is the type of clippers that you're gonna wanna get. I'll put a link in the description to these exact clippers that I use. They're my absolute favorite clippers so they're easy to hold on to. They have a locking mechanism so that you can keep them closed. They also have a wristband so that you can wrap that around your wrist while you're working. So these are for branches like woodies, any kind of evergreens. This is the kind of tool that you wanna use. These are Felco's and I'll also put a link for these in there. Clean your clippers before every use. I know that that seems like a lot but that is the only way that you are gonna prevent bacteria from past cuttings getting into your fresh stems. You can just use a home cleaner and a clean sponge if that's all you have. Vases have one great bud vase. So this is versatile in that you can use it for a single stem or a couple of stems. So this is for a small tabletop or something by your bedside, something on the kitchen counter, one good bud vase. Then you're gonna want sort of a small to medium size vase that does not need any sort of mechanic and a mechanic is just a tool that keeps flowers in place. You want something that's quick and easy that you can design in without a lot of fuss. Then you need a large vase that doesn't need a mechanic, something that is a little bit taller and that can handle larger stems. And then finally, one good compote. So this compote is one of my favorites. It has a five and a half inch opening and it works great just with a piece of chicken wire in it. And with these four types of vessels, you can pretty much make any arrangement that you need to. Water is imperative in making your flower arrangements look good. So you'll wanna use clean water from the tap and you'll want it to be room temperature. Hot water and cold water both have a role in floral arranging, but for everyday designs, you want room temperature. If you have floral food, that's great, but really clean water is gonna be your best option. You'll also wanna change the water in your arrangement every day. So I'm just gonna take my flowers out. You can then empty your water, rinse out the jar, pop those flowers right back in. This clean water is what keeps your flowers looking nice for as long as possible. You'll definitely want to prepare all your stems just like pro florists do. And what that means is that you want to take off any excess leaves or side branches so that your stems are nice and clean when they go in the water. So I'll show you first the example, this is alstroemeria. It's beautiful, but it needs to be cleaned up. You can see there's leaves along the stem. So preparing your stems first means taking off all of this excess leaves, clearing those stems so that you have a nice, clean stem. Preparing your stems also means giving your stems a fresh cut. With a fresh cut, these flowers will be able to take up water more easily. Some stems you may need to use a clipper. This is some larkspur. These stems are not very strong. So I wanna use my clippers to take off all of these side shoots so that I'm left with one main stem. And now these little leaves I can take off with my hand and these little small side shoots I can too. One other thing you wanna check for, you can see here on the larkspur, there's like a little nodule which came from the side shoot. You wanna try to make that as flush against the stem as possible so that when you're inserting your stems, it can come in and out very easily without getting caught on anything. So all you do is just follow along the stem and just clip that so that it's flush and nice and straight. Choosing an intentional color palette will really elevate your arrangement. I usually like to try to stick with two to three colors so that my flower arrangement looks cohesive. So today I'm gonna just be using shades of pink, peach, cream, and white. It doesn't really matter what the color palette is as long as it's intentional and that the flowers really work together. Next, you're gonna wanna have the six elements that I always use in flower arrangements. The first element is foliage. This is deutzia. My next element is line flower. A line flower is any flower that grows up the stem in a line like this one. This is larkspur. Next, focal flowers. They're usually face flowers. Today I'm gonna be using poppies. My secondary focal, ranunculus today. It's gonna act as the backup to my poppies. A filler flower is something that is more like a single stem with a spray on top. Today I'm gonna be using this alstroemeria. And bits and pieces are just those elements that add fun to your arrangements. This is leucodium. Now you're ready to design. I'm gonna show you how to make a simple arrangement using all of the techniques that we've already talked about. So I'm gonna start with my foliage. Again, this is deutzia. I've cleaned my stems. I've given them a fresh cut. And now when I go to place them, I'm gonna place them in at an angle. And I'm going to use my foliage to first determine how tall I want this arrangement to be. Generally when you're making an arrangement, you want it to be no taller than one and a half times the height of the base. And I'm gonna put a couple stems of these in in a circle. I think I'm gonna add five stems today. So once I've got my foliage in, I'm gonna place my line flowers. So I'm gonna also put five of these in my mason jar. And again, I'm going right around in a circle. You can see that I've cleaned my stem so that there's no flowers or leaves in the water. And I'm letting them stick up the highest part of the design. Here is a little measuring tip. Put the vase at the edge of your table. Hang the stem off of the table. And then you can cut right at the table. And then that will be just exactly the right height. Next, I'm gonna put in some of my filler flowers. And I'm going to use some of this alstroemeria. So we want to fill in a little bit of that negative space. And our filler is a little bit lower. So the filler flower is not the thing that we're looking to shine. It acts as a background. Now it's time for our focal flowers. I'm gonna be using these poppies today, which again, I love. As I'm putting my focals in, I can tuck a few here and on the side. Can put a few here in the middle. But I'm making sure that they have plenty of room to continue to open and to shine. Now that I've got my focals in, I can put my secondary focals in. So this is gonna be my ranunculus. And again, I'm going right in a circle so that my arrangement looks good on all sides. Now I'm gonna go ahead and put my bits and pieces in. Just adding a tiny bit of whimsy and movement and special little details. Even if you went to a floral design school for years and years, you still wouldn't cover everything that you do in floral arranging. But that's the fun of it. The practice, the learning, the continuous trying new things. That's why I started my online community called Flower More. Inside Flower More, we practice designs. Join us in Flower More today. There's a link in the description for you to join.