Learn Floral Design; How to Arrange Sunflowers Like a Professional

So we're going to do a step-by-step demonstration using sunflowers and this is a very very simple arrangement. All I'm going to use is five flowers and I'm also going to give you lots of ideas of substitutes that you could use instead and a lot of the greenery that I'm going to use we robbed out of the garden. So we robbed some out of Deirdre's garden and believe it or not I robbed some out of my own garden as well even though I don't have much of a garden. But this is the container I'm going to work with today. Now don't ask me where I got this container this is an antique. I often come online and I say you know the way you have that one container floating around the shop for ages well this is one of these. Olga says that's a fab vase where did you buy it? I've just answered your question have no fecking clue Olga it's it's older than myself to be honest but it is a nice container and I was planning on using a yellow container do you remember I showed you yesterday when the sunflowers came in they were quite big and quite heavy and the yellow container wasn't going to be big enough so that's how I decided to use this one. So I have it filled with wedgies you know me and I love me wedgies okay so these are all my off cuts of oasis they're all wet by the way right so they're all off cuts of wet oasis and then I have it filled up nearly I'm just trying on the side there you could nearly say three quarters way like there's loads of it. So what I now have then is a half a block of foam okay foam is wet and what you can do at home as well I would advise you is to fill that container up with water I haven't because I'm going to be lifting up and down I don't want to spill it on top of myself and drown myself on live Facebook YouTube and whatever. So with my half block of foam that I have wet already I'm just going to take a little corner just see off the four um the four corners obviously and then little pieces there they get thrown into that pot as well and this knife is deadly use your little oasis knife and then I'm just pairing around the top and you can do this a lot neater with a proper oasis knife okay so peel around the top and all them bits get thrown in there as well no no you're going to keep going so if we have women watching and if there's men watching as well you know yourself you always have a bit of fat around the arse and hips that you'd love to get rid of okay and we'd all love to go and get liposuction so now I'm going to demonstrate a bit of liposuction only the unfortunate thing is it's on my oasis that's why I have this knife here so what I'm going to do now with my block of foam is I'm taking a little bit of fat off the arse and the hips and the back of my bum and the other hip and the other hip and the top of my legs and my thighs and all the rest wouldn't you love to be able to do that so I've just removed all the fat off the bottom part of the oasis but I've left it at the top so imagine it like a mushroom it's wide on top and nice and skinny at the bottom and all these little pieces actually have enough in the pot there but you could put them into another pot if you want to so the reason for doing that is I now have my pot and now I can kind of press my mushroom if you want to call it just see down into it so if you had to fill that with water can you see then how secure it'll be I'm just going to get a bit of tissue now just to dry this off you talk to them I need is a bit of anchor tape and I'm going to use the wider anchor tape if you have the skinny one that will absolutely do as well I'm going to use the wider one because one part is or one piece I'm going to say is probably enough actually the false nails are a disaster with the anchor tape anyway I've just got a piece there so cut yourself a piece of anchor tape now when you're placing it on pull it nice and tight like elastic across the container okay across the top of your phone stretch it and then bring it down onto your pot and then press it down nice and secure now the very edges of the anchor tape the bit that's stuck to the pot there now right but normally that part has been stuck to your fingers and if you've creams or oils not that I have any creams or oils on my fingers but if you have you kind of find that the tape mightn't be as sticky so that's the bit I cut off so I'm cutting that piece off because again you don't want the tape coming that far down on the top and I'm now going to just cut another little bit off and press that down there so that's just one piece is all I'm going to do I'm going to move this down lower now just it's easier for me because the container is quite high and that's why I didn't fill the water because I knew I was going to have to move it down and I was afraid I was going to drown to myself and this here it's like a whip okay this is artificial grass and this is what I'm going to use for my height today now if you haven't got this which probably haven't and you're going to say where did I get it I got it in the wholesalers they bought you sell them or so they sell them in tens normally and I always have a stock of them now don't ask me if I need to sell because I haven't got a clue but I normally do have a stock of these in the school because they're so handy talk about getting you out of a hole when you're looking for something kind of tall now steel grass would do the job here today but I haven't got steel grass again you could use the twigs you know the twigs you've seen me use them before in the arrangements and I also got some lucky bamboos in last night so during the week I'm going to do another live demonstration so you get your steel grass start near the back of the container you're looking at the back by the way right start near the back of the floral foam and slightly tilt it back when you're here at the class I always talk about don't stand things up dead straight slightly lie them back and I say is if you just have one glass of wine and you're just nicely relaxed so here I am haven't had any wine yet and just sorry a couple of questions Jeanette steel grass bear grass can use instead and medallino sticks can you use yeah medallino sticks you could use and contorted twig twisted willow birch twig and lucky bamboos yeah all of them will work there's probably other suggestions I'm just not thinking about the moment but just something to give us a bit of movement and a little bit of height so I'm just turning that sideways to you that you can see that Vicky is just lying back nice and relaxed in her arrangement that you're not standing that up dead straight that's to get visual balance in your arrangement okay so that's going to give me a little bit of movement and it's giving me height now people talk about height and they say well they were told to go one and a half times the height of the container I was told that as well but you know me I don't always follow the rules to be honest I actually most times like to go twice the height of the container and sometimes I go three times the height of the container now I'm not going to bring the flowers up as high as this so this is kind of like my imaginary height now I have five sunflowers again I've organized them just to kind of like save a bit of time and we don't want this to go on all day just a trick with sunflowers you know the way the head and okay that one there is kind of you can see where the head is kind of like slightly tilted now you can't straighten that back up again you can't don't because what I'm going to say there and you can't you can kind of flex it with your finger right but if you have one that's kind of fairly straight ish and what you're afraid of it as it opens more that will start to bend over if you get a little bit of 20 gauge wire about three centimeters two and a half three centimeters piece of heavy wire okay and then insert it down through the pollen at the top so hold the top of your stem insert it down through the center of the flower and you're basically going down into the stem of the flower now it's sore to do this okay because I'm pushing the wire down with the top of my finger so you can't see it and what that wire does it supports the flower to stop it going over anymore okay it won't straighten it back up again it's slightly but not normally not really with some of the foliage I'm leaving some of the foliage on for the moment and then I'll do a little bit of a hair trim afterwards and I'll decide which ones I'm going to trim off now I have have these prepared to save time right so I have five um I was gonna say hydrangeas by the way a couple hydrangeas anybody has hydrangeas in the garden substitute these five flowers for five hydrangeas five peas five proteas five roses five large carnations if you want to you know I mean it's not really a great flower the large carnation so this is more of a contemporary modern sort of arrangement but the rules and again I can't go into everything in kind of a live demonstration but I'll try and cover the main rules as possible with this arrangement the big flowers are at the bottom and the small flowers are at the top so I often say to the students it's a bit like your body well my body anyway I have a small head I have slightly bigger boobs and I definitely have a bigger bum or a bigger backside so that's how your arrangements will work you'll start off with your smaller flowers you'll then get your boobs and you'll gradually get bigger and then you'll have your big fat arse and you'll have your bigger flowers at the bottom but what I'm going to do is I'm going to start at the bottom and I'm going to work my way up there's nothing wrong with starting at the top and working your way down it's easier the way I'm going to show you so I already have one of my sunflowers cut quite short okay when you're placing this flower in the foam look at it and say well would it look nicer that angle or that angle or that angle or that angle and you see that I'm just turning it around so look at the flower and see what angle looks better now I often describe what I have in my hand here now I just say that's the sunny side looking up happy flower now I'm turning around and it's a sad depressed flower and here it is getting happy again can you see the difference okay so watch that with your flowers when you're inserting them into the foam are you getting the the sunny side or does your flower look like it's a bit depressed and a bit sad looking so this flower is going to be placed at the very very bottom of the foam nearly sitting its fat arse it's the biggest flower by the way these aren't in water that long do you know that way so they're only barely kind of starting to open and you'll see some of them are extremely tight that's going to be my head like that's my smallest one right so I'm starting at the bottom of the container I've decided which is my sunny side up now don't start exactly in the middle I want you to go either a little bit to the right or a little bit to the left and it makes no difference being right-handed I naturally go to the right-hand side so low down on the container and because it's quite a heavy flower when I'm sticking it in I have a cut on a 45 degree angle I'm going to support the back of the container when I'm pushing in so that I don't knock it over so low down push this flower in and it's quite a thick stem and right down I'm going to turn that around to you it's too high for me to use the turntable just do it with violence you might get it in the yeah I have it all the next flower is the next one that's just a little bit more open okay just a slightly a little bit more open and this flower I want you to go to the opposite side in other words I went to the right you're now going to go to the left and it's going to be a little bit higher I have saved time by having all my flowers pre-cut already but I now want to show you another little trick with the arrangement if I turn it sideways okay now when you're placing the flower in you're going to stand in front of it and you're going to look when you're placing your flower but what happens you're all inclined to do this that's a really bad habit to do I call that throwing darts you know there you are and you're throwing the flowers into the arrangement I want the flower kind of like it looks like flowers I'll show you the trick I'm going to show you here when I position this flower in if you throw it in like a dart can you see the way it's looking forward we call that a pregnant flower arrangement if you want a pregnant flower arrangement you need to bring that flower back so watch that when you're inserting that second flower and the third flower is that you don't make a bump in the front of your arrangement it's a big error no no on people who are working at home okay flower soften slag them look at the arrangement it's pregnant so again I'm going to the opposite side a little bit higher give each flower its own space position in tilted back slightly so it's not pregnant especially if the flower head is tilted you can see I'm using my two hands now when I'm inserting the flower again people say to me they're that's because you're only holding with one hand so if you're if it's not necessary to hold the container use your two hands because these are quite thick stems and then I'm going to press that down into the floral foam and you can see then the way it's going to the opposite side if you look at it sideways can you see the way it's stepping backwards you don't mean that it's not coming forward my third flower is now going to go to the opposite side now this one is possibly nearly the same size as as that one there there wasn't a huge difference but again a little bit to the opposite side so a little bit to the right or a little bit to the left but again when you look at it sideways can you see the way you're getting the side profile the way I'm bringing that back again if you leave that flower sticking forward like if you put it in like a dart and it's looking forward you've now made boobs on your arrangement jolly carton okay so no boobs and no pregnancy again I need to look at this when I'm putting it in again another tip right a lot of you when you're making your flower arrangement you keep looking at the floral foam and there you are I'm over exaggerating but there you are sticking the flower in and you're not even looking at the second flower don't be looking at the floral foam the chances of missing the floral foam you'd want to be as blind as a bat you're not going to miss it look at the flower look at your arrangement and decide where you want to put this flower so I've decided to go a bit higher than this one to the opposite side I won't say right to left because obviously you're looking at it backwards so position the flower where you want it like slightly tilted back again I haven't looked at the foam if you watch my eyes rewind this arrangement I have not looked at the foam I can feel it with my fingers start tipping it now I'm just going to check that I wasn't hitting the anchor tape which I'm not so then if you're happy use your two hands I'm very happy I am press that flower down into the foam and again you're leaving a little bit of space between them so if you look at it sideways no pregnancy no boobs and if we look at the front can you see the zigzag coming up through the arrangement but again another tip leave a little bit of space between the flowers that's something I find again anybody starting off doing contemporary first they pack them like baskets or traditional arrangements leave space between the flowers what I would normally say to my students you know that way simple classical elegant style like keep it simple sometimes like l ones if we want to call them and say it's a bit of a skimpy but when you're starting off keep to this sort of simple style until you learn the rules so again the arrangement is like lying back visually kind of smallest one you can see the way they were gradually getting smaller as they went up this one will eventually open okay so this is my head my boobs my um stomach and my foam you're laughing my dear is knocking away there so I'm going to the opposite side I'm doing the same thing I'm focusing on the flower now this one is going slightly to the right but I also want to keep it a little bit to the middle because it is the point of the arrangement keep it in place when I'm happy check that I'm not hitting the anchor tape I'm not checking I'm not too near the edge and I'm using my two hands to secure it right down into the foam because when you're walking across the road if you're transporting this arrangement this is the one that's going to be wobbling all over the place so there's our five flowers so next part I went down to the garden this morning and I robbed some fatsia leaves so these are fatsia leaves that I have I'll just push this to one side fatsia leaves that I have in my own garden so what I then do is using 20 or 22 gauge wires I've 20 here beside me if you've watched any of the tutorials I probably told you to use 22 so look at the back of the leaf and imagine it like your hand as in your fingers and pick the one that's in the middle so I'm looking at that one there and I'm saying that one there is close to the middle start at the top of the stem and count about two or three centimeters up which is just about where my fingernail is using a 20 gauge wire I'm going to do a little stitch across that little vein and push the wire halfway through approximately hopefully you can see that there right I'm going to bend the two pieces of wire down so I'm going to pinch them with my finger and my thumb and I'm going to bend the two of them down to see at the same time do it that way don't bend one down and then the other one down try and get the two of them down at the same time you get a better curve now then I hold them in my left hand because I'm a right-handed person I'm grabbing one piece of the wire and I'm wrapping it around the stem of the leaf and also around the other bit of wire so it's only one piece of wire you grab and you wrap it around and to see the way it wires the back of the leaf you might say what do you do that for if afterwards I decide to give the leaf to see a little bit of curve or a bit more kind of a natural um curve to it that's how I can control with the leaf so I'll just do that once more look at your leaf imagine it like your fingers pick the one that's in the okay count up two or three centimeters do a little stitch in one side and through the other side and push the wire halfway through there we go put your finger and your thumb over the stitch bend down the two wires at the same time onto the stem of the leaf move it into your left hand so that you're gripping it grab one piece of wire any of the wires and you're then going to wrap it around the stem of the leaf and around to the other bit of wire at the same time and again it gives you that flexibility that you can curve the leaves now Deirdre went out to her garden this morning where's my stapler and she got these corduroy leaves but they're the variegated corduroy leaves they're gorgeous now the tops of them Deirdre are a bit tatty Deirdre sorry about that okay I'm just going to have to cut that part off now pretend now that you're making a swiss roll I never made a swiss roll or a sausage roll and just curve that over do you see like that and then using your stapler put two staples in at one high and one low and can you see the effect you can also do this with the normal corduroy leaves or the flax leaves if you have the euformiums in your garden there's a bit tatty on this side here Deirdre as well I'm just going to tear that off and then I'm going to roll it around sorry somebody just asked what gauge wire did you use I used 20 but to be honest a 22 would have done it was just a 20 was beside me but normally when I'm teaching that as a class I tell them all to use a 22 because it's much much easier it is so again I'll do that one more time look at the top of the leaf cut off our tatty little bit do our little roly-poly I just put my curly whirlies which I'm going to call them do you remember the bars of chocolate called curly whirlies and I have all my fatsia leaves wired up as well so I'm back to my flower arrangement so on one side of the arrangement and I'm deciding to go for the white there's no right or wrong way of doing this so using some of these curly whirlies I'm going to make a group of them now the thing is you can go into your local flower shop and you can just buy five sunflowers five hydrangeas five peonies four will be grand if you just want to keep it at four once you have the container you go to somebody's garden and you rub the corduroy leaves and you go to my garden and you can rub your fatsia leaves and then it's just basically like make up your design when you're putting in these leaves into the floral foam cut them on an angle you're like kind of like 245 degree angles now I stuck the first one in and I'm going to be completely honest with you now I don't have a particular pattern for putting these curly whirlies in I just let my eye tell me so I'm looking at the arrangement and I just think oh I think that would look nice and you can see the way I went back on the foam and then I'm going to get another one I'm going to cut this one a little bit shorter and I'm kind of going eeny meeny miny moe I think that would be nice about there and again just checking I'm going to stick that one in there and then I'm I think I'll stick that one in there now just turn that around just to show the effect so that's called I'm not finished this is called designing the arrangement that's what some florists call it I'm designing the arrangement so here I am designing the arrangement ah you're just making it up as you're going along as I go along so that's basically what I tell the students like we call it designing or creating because essentially it's posh and but really I'm making it up as I go along as I'm kind of asking myself well what do you think yeah yeah that looks nice so we stick that in there and when we bring one back here I don't know so let's get one try it put it on a stand come back here yeah I think that'll look gorgeous and I'm gonna stick the other one in there so as I said I'm making it up as I go along and if you want to put less or more of them curly whirlies in you can don't put them on the other side because this is called grouping and the idea is that you keep all the same items kind of together so this is like our dominant focal flare coming down to the center this would be our movement in the arrangement and this is more movement in the arrangement but it's grouping keeping the groups together now to the opposite side of the arrangement I'm going to put some of the facia leaves so I'm going to have a look for us and see can I find the smallest one and you know the very bottom sun flare we are the one that's at the bottom I'm going to place this one in here kind of in underneath that sun flare just turn that around here just so you can kind of see the effect and now I'm going to come up on one side if you want to call a half moon crescent half arc whatever you want to call it I'm going to bring a couple of leaves kind of coming up on the opposite side of the arrangement kind of create like a frill creating that sounds good designing I'm designing a frill coming up one side of the arrangement so I'm just bringing that up there I'm just going to get one that's a little bit taller and I'm going to bring one in kind of back here there we go and I just feel that I could get another one just kind of in here so I'm having a look to see have I got another small one and the small one here there we go I'm going to cut this one fairly short and I'm going to bring this one in close kind of in there I just need to look at it when I'm doing it so turn back around here I'm aiming the stem kind of more in between the two sunflowers that's nearly going to overlap on top of the leaf that was already there now don't be worrying about the gaps in the foam I'm going to show you what I'm going to do there so can you see the effect now where I have a group of faxia a group of curly whirly a group of plastic bear grass it's not real stuff okay and our five sunflowers hydrangeas peonies whatever flowers you're going to use zigzagged down to the center now do you remember last week the little girls down in wexford as we're walking by yeah so we still have loads of that moss left so what I've done is I've got some 20 gauge wires 22 will do by the way just the one that's near you I've cut it into maybe what would you say five centimeters and then I'm just kind of bending them over in half I'm making what I call mossing pins or hairpin bends okay so using the moss I'm just going to break up the moss and anywhere that I kind of see a bit of foam which there's a good bit of a show I'm just pressing the the moss in there and I'm using these little pins to pin it on I'll show you here at the back so we get some of the moss rested on there to see at the back right and then get your little pins and then just basically like little hairpins it's just pin them on in place in between me curly whirlies there do you see them coming in around in between the curly whirlies and where this is going to look so much nicer than putting loads of bits of greenery in between it because it'll nearly look like the curly whirlies are shooting out the top of the container which they are if you know the way are out the top of the um or out of the moss and the great thing about the moss when you're watering this arrangement if you pour the water get a bottle of water pour the water on top of the foam and then it go down through the moss and down into the foam and people always say to me how much there you go uh now I'm just checking around the front here down low so down where my knicker line is okay I can see a little bit of foam so I'm just putting another little bit of moss down there there's my knickers head I'm coming around the side here and in between where I layered the uh fascia leaves remember I kind of layered them I just see another bit of a gap in here so I'm just going to get I just need flower power wants to know on instagram could you use sisal straw instead of the moss about to say it yeah yeah sisal straw would work out absolutely perfect or any of them mosses that you can buy in from holland they would do fine so again we'll just show you there I've just kind of pinned it in between the fascia and then just coming around here there's another little bit so the moss is great it is it's a great one for filling in it stops the arrangement drying out because it's a natural sponge so it holds water and it looks gorgeous now the only spray the don't spray it on the flares spray it on the artificial grass I'm only messing it's not going to work on the artificial grass and to see the difference that it'll make to them now again if you haven't got leaf shine before you put the leaves in while they're resting on the table get cotton wool and put baby oil on it or any oils I suppose but baby oil cooking oil and one of the girls abigail she used coconut oil which I've never heard and it worked for her so just spread the oil onto it and again it'll give that shiny effect so as I said fatsia is robbed from my own garden cordeline's robbed from dearest garden in walkingstown moss robbed from county wexford an artificial grass that was floating around an antique pot that god knows where I bought you know but it could be any container and five sunflowers that you could go into your local flower shop or maybe if you're buying them that you could ask them to give you five different sizes to be honest like peonies and hand sunflowers when they buy them in there is always going to be different sizes in the package like it's not like buying roses that they're all the same or carnations that they're all the same there's normally kind of different um like big somebody asked can you use hairspray I wouldn't no don't use hairspray jesus no no hey everybody talk to you all next week we're going