Festive Flowers for Any Winter Occasion

1. Festive Flowers - INTRO: Hi, everyone. I'm so glad you're here in this class. My name is Melissa. I'm a forest and all around artists living in Denver. And in this class, I'm going to teach you how to design a beautiful, festive holiday floral centerpiece like this one. Well, that was a mouthful. I designed this center fuse for a Christmas dinner party. And the colors and style, I think are perfect for any winter holiday, not just Christmas. I'm using a footed Mercury base to give the arrangement a tasteful, refined look. Since I chose red, light, pink, green and pops of purple, which are appropriate for Christmas and Valentine's Day or any winter occasion, it really could apply toe any kind of holiday. In this arrangement, I bought all my flowers from my local wholesale flower market in L. A. And I foraged a lot of my greenery from my childhood backyard. I grew up playing in which was so special I love picking ingredients from a backyard for my floral designs. I think there's something so magical about it in this class. I'll walk you through step by step, every single thing that I'm doing and why I am doing it to build this beautiful arrangement so that you'll learn more in depth skills that you can apply to your own arrangements at home. I'll go over greening your face. Why it's important to do so. Then I'll teach you how is strategically placed the flowers and how I layer them to create dimension and depth for the I. Then I'll share all my best practices for keeping your arrangement fresh. Even if you've taken my other classes, you learned some new tips in this class. Let's get started. 2. Festive Flowers - GREENERY: For this first lesson, I'll show you had a green your vase and why it's important to do so. I'm starting out with a bunch of Stephen's of greenery from bushes and shrubs that I foraged from my childhood backyard. So dreamy, right? I picked a lot of different kinds of greenery to give the arrangement interest to the I because they have various shades of green and different textures. So before I start, I laid out all of my greenery on me working space in front of me. So it's handy, and I felt this footed face with water and started placing stems into it at an angle. And I always chopped stems before I put it into water so that they can drink the water. Just like in my other arrangements. I'm going to create a grid of greenery where I layer each stem at an angle making share to crisscross them so that they overlap each other. And this creates and nice, sturdy grid so that the flower stems can be supported so that they won't fall over or move around all over the place. So I'm starting with a bunch of little pieces of greenery anytime you put a stem into the base if you want to strip the bottom of the stems of leaves so that the leaves don't touch the water because leaves have bacteria on them, and when they touch water, the bacteria bacteria will start to grow, and that will make your flowers day quickly. So make sure you struck the stand clean of any leaves before putting it into water. Then cut the stem so that it can drink the water. Like I said before at an angle. And if you don't cut the stem right before you put it in your face of water, the stem won't drink the water and then it will die faster. These are just basic one. No. One tips for any far arrangement that you dio and placing the stems of greenery into the base at an angle and layering them to build a strong structure that will hold the flowers first. Few steps I'm cutting are pretty short. Otherwise they'll fall over and out of the base thistles because the stems like to float in the water. If they're light enough, when you air and crisscross enough stands, they'll hold each other and place down into the water. Make sure that you have enough pieces of greenery in the arrangement toe. Hold up the flowers, but not too many stem so that it's overcrowded and you won't be able to fit any flowers in there. Since I'm creating this arrangement for a holiday table centerpiece, I'm doing a long and low arrangement, and it's gonna be on a long and low table. So you want to mimic the shape of the table and think about who's going to be sitting there . So when you're creating it, this means that the stems for this example are going to be relatively short, with some long pieces coming out on the left into the right of the arrangement. There's not gonna be any tall pieces because I wanted the people sitting across from each other at the table to see over the arrangement and look at each other. There will also be a front and the back of the arrangement, because that's where most people will be looking at the arrangement from other sitting at the dinner table. You can see that I'm twisting and turning in the greenery stems until it's at an angle in a position that I like, So I'm playing around with it. I'm not totally committed to any specific stems, but I'm working and building it so that it looks beautiful and natural. So some of the stems air gonna be sticking up and out from the base and then others air kind of curving downwards because they I want them to look like they're draping and drooping out of the sides of the base again, giving it that more natural organic look. Be sure to turn the base around all the time, too, so that you can look at it from all different angles and sides. That's a good way to ensure that you have an even amount of greenery filling the entire face on all sides. Don't be afraid to play around with apples in the placement of each stand experiment, see what works and see what you like. But just remember that when you're putting in each stand at an angle, you want to crisscross them with the other stones in there so that their intertwining and forming a grid system all right, so go ahead and practice and in the next lesson will go over how to put in your flowers 3. Festive Flowers - THE FLOWERS: now for the flowers. I'm starting with this purple or to choke because it's the biggest bulky ist foot unquote flower, and it's pretty heavy. You can see how big the stomach. I put it in the arrangement first, because if I put it in after I put delicate flowers in there, it could lay against them and potentially smush them. So you want to start with the biggest and heaviest flowers first after your greenery. These air called the focal flowers usually, and I put the art a trip in the front of the arrangement at an angle a little bit off center. Everything I put in the arrangement always goes in at an angle. No, nothing down sometimes like in a very rare occasional put one going straight up and down. Putting flowers into the arrangement at an angle is most appealing to the eye, in my opinion, and it allows you to look at the power from all different angles, and it still looks beautiful. I'm putting in some fresh lavender, also that I found in my parent's backyard, and I really love using fragrant flowers and my arrangements. I feel like it gives this element of surprise and delight that is more than just a visually beautiful element. But it also is beautiful for your senses. Fresh scented herbs are also a really nice surprise, since you're not really expecting that, and some examples of that are fresh. Rosemary, mint, basil or purple basil is so pretty. So then I'm using the next largest flour, which are these red fluffy peonies, their winter peonies. And I'm cutting the stand pretty short on these two, since the base is shorter and I wanted to nestle right next to the artichoke as another her of the focal point of the arrangement, and I turned it around and added another p me to the back of the arrangement. Teoh, balance it out the artichoke also since so heavy. If you kept the stem long and put it in, it could tip over the whole arrangement potentially. So you want to keep it pretty sure that I'm trying it around. I know where I want to put my flowers, and then I'm using use a little angel, the loveliest light pink ridiculous that I've ever seen. I literally squealed when I saw these at the flower market in L. A That is one of the ways that I choose my flowers and pick ones that literally called me and give me butterflies in my stomach. Since I'm thinking about how the arrangement would look a long dinner table with for more people building the shape for the arrangement for that sticking out angle in, this will help eyes around the arrangement for interest in depth. Instead of just looking at one round dig lane of flowers where everything looks like a perfect circle, The key to this style that I'm drink is cutting. This turns out different links and then placing the longer stems in on the left of the arrangement and the right side of the arrangement, creating several layers of flowers for the ice to look out. And I'm continuing to turn the arrangement around, adding more on all sides than I'm using these light pink roses before it cut the flower and put it. And I have an idea I want to go, but not necessarily 100% committed to it, like I could try it out, and then if I don't like how it looks, will take it out on any of it. I let the Flowers guide, where I put that kind of an intuitive sense that I've developed after doing it so many times. But cutting it again short, not necessarily the same exact date is the other ones. But I wanted to be a little bit more on that first layer flowers. So pretty much every time after I put in a flower, I'll turn carriage, grabbing some more lavender cause I see a little spot that I want, and I think it gives a little bit of toucher interest. It's like a good filler lower and feel free to add in any little elephants. You can always layer more greenery into the arrangement after you put flowers in that, I'm starting with adding in some of these walia bores in this arrangement there green. But sometimes they're pink. They kind of act like a pillow, our to in this case, a little bit of greenery, since they do have a lot of leaves on them and I kept this stand a little longer, so could poke out give some dimension as a top layer on the side of the arrangement so that when you're looking at it from the ankle, you could peek through little flowers and see other flowers behind it. I kind of hold it up like that, and the flowers naturally just droop down, emulating that in the arrangement and celebrating, creating a long stem. See beautiful, that is, and that it's selling even so much for size and death. These are called chips grabs them because I wanted just one more piece in this arrangement to be read, but that it tied it with the red and it also gives more texture. I'm just adding about it, not right next to the puny but close to it. I'm going in with these sweet peas, which I love. They're so beautiful and they're so delicate. Feminine is how I feel about them. They and ridiculous. I love them both so much. Use the shape of the stem to determine where you want to place it, and that one was a little bit curved, but I just put in so mimicked again its natural shape placed it so it looked like it was spilling downward out of the base. I love doing this so that the arrangement looks as natural as possible. I got a splinter. Floral designing is always glamorous, but it's worth it in my book. Okay, so while I'm getting hot, splinter out, let me tell you that it's important to make sure that each step you put in judges about with base. This is so that it's more likely to drink the water because all the flowers are drinking water. So if there's a shorter stem in the face and the water line goes down too far, obviously that short step will be able to drink the water like longer steps. Would you want to make sure all the stunts touched the bottom of the base and that you cautious stands at an angle so that they have to drink OK? And that sometimes it's good to take a break and come back to your arrangement with fresh eyes, turning it around kind of adjusting, deciding what else I want to add. And I'm pulling some queen and place and using it as another filler flower, and this stuff was so tricky. It's so beautiful. But it was so tricky because you can see how curly and lady the stands are. You kind of just have to like, really let them be and go with their natural shape and not try toe, twist them or tweet them because they're not going to stay right where you want. Teoh just for these specific stuns their extra curly. I wanted these to be on the outermost layer of the arrangement because their bounty light and have a beautiful, airy, obviously Lacey texture that is so gorgeous to look through and see other flowers on lower layers. Through it. You see me talking, I and my family is in other ribs of the house. I'm charming in representation, so much trouble, but sometimes like the joy and also the challenge of Floral Sign. It's not always easy that that one's a fun one, because you can see that the face of it faces up a certain way. So I tried putting it and straight up and down, and I like that. But it just looked a little too tall and a little doctor suits like, and it is a little bit funky and this arrangement style of it. It's not funky. I wanted to be more formal and elegant. Way also has these little bugs cheating off, so I'm adding them into a textural filler element. I like to use like as much as I can, even if you just have a little about face and you want to do that. Your extra flowers that you don't use Intuit were created. A completely new arrangement from it and gifted to someone always trying, uses many flowers any elements that can not throw away everything. Step back, look at it from different angles. Take a photo of it. Sometimes you can see things in the photo that you can't see with your naked eye. I'm repositioning, so I just saw in the camera. But the queen and places too distracting. So I am replacing it with smaller Queen Anne's lease to vessel next to the flowers to compliment them and draw the eye toward then but not over power that then that big, tall one that I just took out, repositioning it, looking back at the base, visualizing where I would put it. And that's the smaller one that I wanted simply straightening out that step, hoping that it will cooperate with me. You never know. They really have a mind of their own. Sometimes it takes a few tries. We have to be really gentle, but don't be afraid to wait. Wait. Uh, I wanted to put in a P. I decided to put it into the head of the roast. Open it up. Mr Waigel's. It was a front and back. And the two sides of it are the longest parts so perfectly along tacular dinner flowers. I will teach you how to make your flowers last as long as possible. 4. Festive Flowers - TLC FOR FLOWERS: this lesson is all about tender loving care for your flowers and how to make them last longer. Here are my rules of thumb about every other day. Replace the water with fresh water before you put them back into the water. Chopped the ends of stems. The way you do that issue. Just gather all of the flowers in one hand as best as possible to like keep the design intact and then with other hand, take a pair of sharp scissors or clippers and just trim the stems out an angle. Make sure that everything is the same length and then gently place it back into the base with the fresh water. So do that every other day. Keep the flowers out of direct sunlight and you can even start the flowers in the fridge overnight so that they stay fresh longer and then pull out flowers that start toe drew or look sad. And this will help prevent contaminating the other flowers in your arrangement, and that's it. If you have any questions, comments or you would like to leave her of you for this class, I'd love to hear from you. Thank you so much for taking my class and being here and be sure to check out the other classes on my page. Thank you so much and happy designing.