How to Bend Braid and Manipulate Foliage in a Flower Arrangement

Now let's look at what we can make with aspidestra. A broad leaf like this sometimes is just too big to use in an arrangement and we need to figure out what we can do to create something that's a more interesting and we're going to look at how to make a rose. But I've made two roses here that I wanted to show you that how important it is when we trim off the vein on the back of the aspidestrally that we get it really good because when you go to roll it as you can see in this one that it becomes hard and will often crack and the center of that doesn't look as well as you would like it to. So what you want to do is make sure you get as much of that out of there so when we go to add to roll our leaf it'll make it smooth and more like a rose. So on the back side of the leaf now this one I've already trimmed I go about a third of the way up and trim away that vein. So you want to take your knife whether you want to lay it down on your table or whether you want to hold it in your hand. I'm the type of person that has to hold things in their hand and I'm going to start cutting away that vein. If you feel it and it still feels really hard you can go back and cut another layer off just trim it very carefully if you're holding it in your hand that you don't cut yourself like I've done many times but after I've made a few of these I've figured out how to cut it without cutting my finger. So just be real careful with that. So now we have our leaf that no longer stands up and we know that's got enough of that vein taken away. So we're going to start by folding our leaf in half. Now it doesn't have to have a hard crease in it but you do want it folded just about in half and then we're going to fold this side down in a 90 degree turn and that's going to give us our stem for our rose and our aspidestra should be sticking out to the side. Then we're going to roll it. We're going to form the bud in the center of the rose and once you've turned it a couple of times you can start with the folding of the leaf. So you're going to take your hand and turn the leaf over and that's going to put the two sides up and then the next turn that you make will take it back to the bottom and you can see our rose is starting to take shape. Continue the process until you've created your rose. Now at this point we can finish off our rose or we can take a second leaf. This one I have pre deveined and I've cut off the end and I'm going to make this rose a pieces of this cut that I am using and the piece is about twice as long as my lily grass so I know I'll have enough to make it all the way to the end of the lily grass. This time of year the copper looks really pretty with the dark green lily grass and can be used as accents and just gives that a little pop with burgundies and blushes and creams all of that comes in real well and you can add oranges into it as well. So we're just about to the end of this piece of lily grass. I've got to tighten up my weave just a little bit there. As you get closer to the end kind of think about if you're going to attach it to something or if you're going to insert it down into the oasis. In the arrangement here I knew I was going to attach it to the stems so I left my wire long enough to wrap around the stem but if I know I'm going to be inserting it into the oasis then I can finish it off and attach it to instead of using a wooden pick I usually pick up a stem off the floor and tie it to the floor to save that little bit of money. So we're down to the end we're going to catch all of them together twist it around a few times and because I know I'm going to add it into this arrangement I'm going to leave the ribbon just a little bit longer. I can insert it and come around and figure out exactly do I want to bring it low do I want it high where do I want to add this to. Doing little things like this adds a lot of drama to your arrangement giving it dimension. This is not a static line it's very dynamic and gives you a sense of implied motion throughout your arrangement. It also updates your arrangement again this is a very simple arrangement very clean lines and by adding this weave throughout the arrangement all the way around it doubles the size of the arrangement. So what else can we do with lily grass? It's one of my favorite types of foliage whenever I start a technique whether it's braiding or weaving or sewing I like to start with lily grass because it's big enough to see what you're doing and it's I can learn the technique and then I can change it down to bare grass or still grass or change it over into medallino whatever I need to do I start with lily grass. We're going to look at this braid this braid is done with five pieces of lily grass and as you can see it flips back and forth showing the front of the grass as well as the back of the grass. Now this braid is very difficult the first time you do it I'm just going to be real honest about that I was have had a class that was nearly in tears trying to learn how to do it but when you get it you've got it and you can do it with five pieces seven pieces nine pieces so just hang with it and just remember it gets easier every time you practice it. So again I'm not concerned about the ends of the lily grass lining up I'm more concerned with the tips of the lily grass. The first thing I do is I take my lily grass and if I can leave it out of the cooler for an out of water for a couple of days it'll get soft I'll do that but if I can't then I'll just take my hand and bend it like this and soften it up and make it much more pliable. So when I think I have it where I need it to be we can start our braid. I have to put my glasses on for this one. We're going to hold three pieces of our braid in one hand and two pieces in the other. We're going to take the grass and we're going to fold it up and over and now I'm going to hold four pieces of grass in one hand and just have this one sticking out. I'm always working from the very outside to the center so the outside one over under over and the very first few are going to be still stiff because of where they are on the lily grass but you should have three pieces in one hand and two pieces in the other. Again from the outside in over and then to the other side over under over and if you notice when I turn my grass it's this piece is facing down when I turn it it's going to be the front side will be up so each time you're going to turn it over under over and you get this chant going in your hand head over under over and keep going. Once you get the technique you can move much faster and like I did I just messed up right there. I can go back to where I'm back to where the braid is correct if I notice that it's curving too much I can stop at any time and just ease the blades of grass where they need to be so I'm back to where I need to be with my braid and I can start the braid again and continue. It's really important to watch where you are in the braid so that you don't change the pattern especially in competition you want to show them that you can do a technique and do it really well the same with certification again take your time learn the technique learn how to do it well starting with five pieces for this braid is a great start you've always wondered how to do it so just start small and work your way up. I've used this same technique again with the wedding with a little flower girl that wanted the bride wanted her to carry a pomander and I made the handle it was very again with lots of greenery for the wedding and I took the sphere I left it dry and covered it in moss and bind wire and added this as the handle for her to carry it by pinned it in good to the orb and added some more mosses and a few leaves and bind wire and just made it very organic so this is a great technique to use for that you can also use this technique in arrangements because we're going to look at when I get this made in this arrangement giving more dimension and size and it doesn't have to just be for cut flowers or weddings we can also use this in plants when we add it into plants you need to plan again how the tip will be secured and we want to leave a little extra of our wire or ribbon whatever you're going to use to be able to tie it on to the plant so now that we're at the end we're about as far as we can go we're going to gather that together I'm going to give it a little tug every now and then just to straighten that out and I'm going to bind it with this purple wire like this I can cut away the stems at this point and I'm going to add a small pick to this just to make it easier to show you today you could have taped that really good with stem tape but we can take this now and add this to a plant making your plant stand out from the competition again we want to add this the wire as neatly as possible make it look like it's been machined onto the plant and secured firmly I've got another one that I had already done and it could be added as well to the same side to the other side we could bring it up and over and let it cross but I'm just going to attach it right here below the first one that I did you want to always be careful to get this binding point onto your plant and make that look really neat and as professional finish as you can taking this arrangement it's again a very simple paved arrangement with the roses and sunflowers I use magnolia leaves but I flip them upside down and I've taken the same weed and I've added across the top of the arrangement this adds again a dynamic line something that's very a static arrangement being paved low in the container like this and adding more depth and dimension to it I hope you've enjoyed today be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram I want to say thank you to Floriology for hosting me today and to learn more tips and techniques on braiding and weaving and leaf manipulation or anything else Florology now is a great new learning platform be sure to go to floriologyinstitute.com that's the only thing you have to remember all of the information is on that page can learn all kinds of great techniques tips and tricks thank you for joining us