Winter – Page 2 – How I Can Do That

New Life to Wicker

There’s something about those moments in life when money is tight and you
try to do a lot on a dime that’s worth one cent. Here’s one of those
transformations from yard furniture that my husband brought home years ago.

I don’t remember exactly where my husband found these two wicker chairs. It
was from a stage in our marriage where he would regularly hit garage and estate sales. If memory serves me well, these were a yard sale find.

The price was right, even if the quality wasn’t there.

In the above picture I invited a few friends over for a yard party and needed the seating. So even though the fabric siding of the chairs were ripping out and had be hot glue gunned back to the wicker from the people who previously owned them, I hid these flaws by throwing blankets over them.

Close inspection will tell you that the falling apart wasn’t just on the side fabric. The wicker was unweaving on the bottom. The seat cushions were not only out of date by a couple of decades, but also starting to have holes.

We contemplated just throwing these chairs out.

The budget wasn’t there to replace them. And it was hard to toss them when they have always been our favorite seats to sit in during the summer and we have a nostalgic thing for wicker.

We just love them.

So I bought paint and made them over.

Prepping the Chairs

The first thing I had to do was rip all the fabric off and remove the staples with needle nose pliers. There’s no real trick to this, just a whole lot of patience.

The hot glue was easy to remove from the wicker and didn’t have any cosmetic damage. Once I saw this, I had no problem with this being the solution to the issue of the stripping that was unraveling on the bottom of the chairs.

Even though I thought I was going to have to buy new wicker stripping to replace what I thought was lost, I didn’t have to buy any. All that I needed to do was wrap the stripping back around the bottom frame and periodically drop a dot of hot glue to the frame as I re-wrapped the stripping.

I highly recommend using glue to hold anything you’re wrapping in place. There will always be a moment (or a dozen) where stripping will slip from your grip. And a small dot is all you need to keep from the whole section from unraveling and making you redo your work.

And if you’re afraid that you’ll use too much glue, make sure that you’re gluing on the “inside” of the chair. No one will see glue seepage when the chair is on the ground, so even the bottom edge of the chair is also a great place to secure the stripping.

Due to the age of the chairs, there were a few nails that had worked their way out. This made one chair in particular have the seat framing fall down under the rib that it was nailed to. That’s not a problem, because you just remove the nail, put the seat back on the rib and nail it back into place.

Fortunately, I had some extra finishing nails that were in my tool box.

While I was already repairing I decided to do some preventative work. To add additional support to the seat I nailed a few extra nails through the rib into the seat.

A Touch of Paint

There are a few different options that are out there for painting outdoor furniture. I didn’t want to deal with a primer or cleaning up brushes. So I opted for a spray paint with primer.

The one thing that I will say about wicker is that it takes more paint than you think if you want to get in all the nooks and crannies for a even coat. And for my own sanity, I did paint from different angles. One time through I painted the chairs from the upright position. For the second coat I flipped the chairs upside down.

If I do a wicker project again in the future, I will definitely paint in both directions again. There’s something about spray paint. It’s good about getting in tight places, but it really does need the extra help by changing paint directions.

These two chairs took 6 cans of spray paint. If you’re looking to do your own furniture spray painting project, this should give you a decent enough estimation on how much paint you should purchase for your project.

What about the Cushions?

There were two options that I had. At first I was leaning toward making a slip cover because that would be the easiest and quickest option. The only problem was that at the time that I was doing this project, outdoor fabric was more expensive then what I was willing to pay (starting at $15 a yard and I would have bought 4 yards).

My second option was fabric spray paint.

No one that I knew had ever worked with this type of spray paint, so I had no idea on what to expect. The only knowledge I had was watching a fashion designing competition. There was one contestant who used fabric spray to create a certain effect.

I’m sure fabric spray paint is perfect for a fabric that is a solid color.

Print on the other hand….

My pictures here don’t really show you the original print very well. But it’s a slate blue base with flowers (peach to dark rose color) and brown swirling flourishes.

I had chosen brick red fabric paint because it complimented the chocolate brown paint I picked for the wicker. And I thought that it would have great coverage since it’s a darker color.

Yeah, no.

I originally bought one can of fabric paint thinking that it would be more than enough. However, in reality I was only able to paint the top of each of the cushions because of the color disparity of the blue and brown in the original print. The short story is that it took nearly three cans of fabric paint to cover both sides of each of the cushions.

Another problem is that I left the covers on the foam form.

I chalk this fact to being the worst mistake I made for this project. The foam no doubt soaked up the paint, creating less coverage on the front of the fabric. And at the point that I did this project, my kids were babies and I had mommy fog brain. So now I would have removed the cover, but it just didn’t cross my mind then.

The good news is that the second layer of paint was thicker in coverage than the first. So if you wanted to get a solid color off of an old print, I’m absolutely positive that it is obtainable with 3 or 4 coverages. Just know that if you paint over a print, you’re going to have a phantom print showing through.

I wasn’t too opposed to the phantom print because it sparked a creative idea that I absolutely loved. Art Deco!

While Art Deco is more noted for being angular, the beauty of art is that
you take a style as your base and tweak it to fit what you see in your head. So
I took the squares and sprays seen in 1920’s architecture and added circles and
chandelier elements that matched the opulence of the time.

Truth be told, I had to work in the circles into the design to cover the
largest hole (which you see above).

Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) was my material of choice because I wanted the permanent
design and I wanted to keep the cushion weather friendly. It never fails that
our outdoor furniture gets caught in a summer rain a time or two each year.

Once the design was weeded, I cut the elements out and pieced them together
on the cushions in relation to the phantom swirls.

Now this HTV “print” that I made isn’t exactly everyone’s esthetic. I did want to share it with you because I wanted to show you how you can save furniture from being thrown out. Also, you have your own option for making your own design with materials that you have on hand in your home. And to encourage you to play with colors and designs that just are not on the market.

The one thing that I LOVED about this project was that I took chairs that I was constantly making excuses for, to my guests, and turned them into something that we’re happy to have in our yard for the next several years.

Do you have old lawn furniture that you can give new life to?

Comment below! Let me know what you did to rejuvenate a piece of furniture that you almost evicted.

Twine-ing For You

One of the most important tools that you can bring to your garden is cotton twine. It’s inexpensive, has countless uses, and compostable at the end of the season.

Whether you’re ground or container gardening, supporting or opening up air flow, these are a few reasons why you can start using twine today.

Opening Up

Before this past winter, I really pruned back my raspberries. Part of my problem last year is that I didn’t know my new cane from old cane. So I made my best guess. I also thinned it out to a couple of canes in a patch to encourage more fruit growth.

You can imagine my surprise when this spring rolled around and nothing but leaves were growing. Especially since last year my raspberry patch produced so many blossoms that it was one of the first things that the local bees had for food.

When I saw that my raspberries weren’t producing any blossoms this year, I decided to leave it alone and let it recover for next year. And here you can see how my canes just fell on each other.

What I didn’t count on was that my raspberries would produce blossoms and fruit in August!

Normally in my grow zone, the flowers and berries set in the spring. And while this year we did have a spring season (unlike last year), our summer has been completely cool (about 3 months behind in actual summer heat). It was this past week that I walked past my raspberries and saw blossoms and fruit just starting to form.

With my current growing season lacking pollinators, I needed to open these canes up and present the blossoms so the two bees that I saw in this patch of my garden (that were working while I was tending to the canes) could find the blossoms easier and crawl through a maze of leaves.

The canes that were compatible with hooping together, I used my twine to together. With the tail that you see here, I attached it to the cyclone fence you see in the back, to prevent the hoop from falling forward when fruit sets.

In the center, I had 6-8′ canes that I arched back toward the fence. The cane on the right was lying on the ground, so I stretched it upward to present the blossoms.

I know it’s kind of hard to see in this picture that there were three dimensional loops that I made forward/backward and side to side. So while this picture looks like there are two upright clumps of canes, in actuality it’s more like the canes are arching around each other.

This makes it easy for me to spot and harvest the berries. But more importantly my pollinators can find them easier and be efficient with their flight patterns.

TIP: For those of you who are limited on space, you can grow raspberries in a small area. The space that I use is about 1.5 feet deep and about 5 feet wide. The trick is to keep on top of your cane maintenance. Thin when you need to. And to prevent the cane from volunteer grow outside your space, cut back the new cane as they emerge.

The added benefit of opening up your canes like this is that it’s easier to cut out the old growth cane that you missed last season (brown cane with no leaves or fruit).

As opposed to the canes having collapsed on themselves, you can see here how the buds and fruit are much more accessible to the pollinators and myself. And with the heavier bearing canes anchored to the fence, the cane is not going to be stressed under the fruit load.

This is not the traditional way of growing raspberry canes, as far as providing structure goes. But I wanted to share what has worked many seasons for me because sometimes we have to think outside of the box to work with the space that we’re given. And if you have cyclone fencing, you have a grow structure that doesn’t cost you anything additional for your gardening overhead.

Advertisements

Support for Tall/Long Vines

One of the choices that we made this year was to increase our tomato count in our gardening plan. One reason is that it’s one of our largest consumed crops and a base product for many of the meals we eat through the year. Another reason is that I wanted to try a handful of new variety of tomatoes that our outside our standard never fail varieties (which of course I had to keep growing this year).

While I have a decent size collection of tomato cages, I had maybe enough for half of all the tomatoes I wanted to put into the ground. That and I love indeterminate tomatoes. The problem I have every year is that my tomatoes always grow too tall for my cages. So this year I decided to line grow them.

This is now my preferred method for growing tomatoes! I can walk through the rows to collect tomatoes, which I never could do with cages. Line growing tomatoes are also the way to go when you want to grow many vines with a smaller foot print. Mine are about a foot apart. A few plants I missed a couple of suckers, but with additional lines, I was able to train and direct them in a growth direction that keeps the airflow between the plants.

TIP: It’s important to remember that when growing tomatoes densely like this to remove the suckers. This keeps the airflow between the plants, which decreases the chance of disease.

Advertisements

Another added benefit with line growing tomatoes is that there were a handful of plants that were stunted by the cool summer and were over shadowed by the faster growing plants (not just different varieties, but the same varieties that did better taking off). When I adjusted the lines, it opened up pockets in between the plants where I could get the sunlight down on the stunted ones. And they took off and have caught up to the ones that started quicker.

All of this was finesse and control that I never had while cage growing.

If you haven’t line grown tomatoes before, you want to have a structure that you secure you line from. With the bottom of your line, you attach it to the bottom of your start (or even under the roots when you transplant) and through the season, you wrap the line around the vine.

TIP: focus on supporting the main stem under each of the armpits. This keeps the weight of larger bearing fruit (like beefsteak) from stressing out the main stem. This is the first year where I haven’t had to deal with damaged branches from heavy fruit. And my beefsteaks are hanging in the air of fully upright vines of very happy tomatoes.

In fact, this year not all of our tomatoes fit under our trellising structure (a gift from a buy nothing group–so another area where we improved our garden without having to save or budget for it). So I used a few cages. Unfortunately my tomatoes tag teamed with my beans and started to take down my corn. (This is a subject for another day.) Fortunately, I had the cages just outside the structure. When I unweave the tomato vines from the beans and corn, I line tied them to the outside of the structure. This relieved the stress on my corn and gave the structure that the tomato vines were yearning for.

You can see in the right picture, my husband threaded a 10′ piece of conduit through the top section of our structure, out and over the caged tomatoes. So rest assured that if your structure is smaller than your need it can be modified with other materials to extend your grow radius.

If you don’t have conduit already, don’t feel like you have to go out and purchase it if you’re on a tight budget. A long branch (from a trimming company of found fallen while on a hike), cleaned from smaller branches and limbs. Just make sure to secure this addition with some cordage. (As we were using conduit, a healthy length of twine was more than enough to secure it to our structure.)

Advertisements

Structure for Potted Plants

A major reason why I hear people say that they don’t grow vegetables themselves is because they don’t “have land” where they can grow. Whether you’re living in a city, renting from a landlord who says you can’t have a garden, or any other legitimate reason why you can’t have a garden… know that you can still have the option of growing some produce in a container garden!

In the picture on the left, I have two pepper plants and two tomato plants. In this space, I don’t have room for cages. And an upright bamboo support was not enough because the size of my plants and physics were just causing my pots to fall over.

To solve this problem I pulled out one of my 6′ shepherd’s hooks, anchored it in the center of all the pots, and ran lines to each plant. Depending on where you live, any number of other resources can be used in the same manner. If you’re patio has an over head beam, a large command hook can be used. If you only have two pillars, run line at a certain height between the pillars (two or three times around). From this line, tie to your line what you are running down to your potted plants. Again, take a look at the resources that you have and use your imagination to make the structure that your plants need.

The picture on the right is my pepper plant that really took off with four large branches. When the blossoms started presenting on this plant, I knew I had to open it up or I would decrease the amount of pollination because of hidden blossoms. So I spread out the four branches in four different directions; two to the shepherd’s hook, one to the fence, and one to my uncovered greenhouse.

Advertisements

There’s no one way that you have to offer support to your garden! Be creative. Think outside the box.

You are capable of growing the amount of food you want to grow.

Look at your plants and see what it is that they need. If they need more air, create a system to open them up and give them more air. If you need to maximize the rate of blossom pollination, look for ways that you can make it easier for your pollinators to find and get to your blossoms (as well as making sure that the fruit doesn’t crowd each other out of space).

If your budget is tight, or you need your money to go to other things, look around you and see what resources you have that are free or at a less expensive cost than some of the other conventional gardening items. For example, if you want to grow lots of tomatoes but can’t afford the cages you need, go with cotton twine. It’s very inexpensive and is just as effective.

What other tricks do you have for supporting your garden on a budget?

11 responses to “Twine-ing For You”

1B.newcn.win

August 31, 2023

Pretty! This was an extfemely wonderful article.
Thank you for provbiding this info.

LikeLiked by 1 person

Reply
Pacific Northwest Event Design

August 30, 2023

Thank you for finding me! I hope you enjoy all the variety that I offer here. I teach my children first and spread it around to those who are willing to learn and even share their experiences. We live in a pretty amazing world.

LikeLike

Reply
Pacific Northwest Event Design

August 30, 2023

Thank you! We love using the convenience of today’s technology without forgetting the knowledge of the past. There’s a lot of amazing knowledge when we embrace both.

LikeLike

Reply
Pacific Northwest Event Design

August 30, 2023

Thank you both for finding my site! I hope you enjoy what’s currently available and all that is coming in the future.

LikeLike

Reply
Pacific Northwest Event Design

August 30, 2023

Thank you for your comment. I always love hearing honest opinions. By chance was it a different post that a video was linked in? Twine-ing for you had no outside links in it.
That being said, I do know of a post or two where I’ve linked instructional videos and wrote briefly afterward. So your comment is valid and noted. Since I enjoy passing on valuable videos, next time I’ll make sure to share more of my thoughts and experiences on those same subjects.

LikeLike

Reply
064

August 30, 2023

Write more, thasts all I hae to say. Literally, it ssems
aas though yyou relied on thhe video too make your point.
Youu definitely know what youre talking about, why wastte youur intelligence onn just posting videos
to yyour blog when yyou could be iving uss
ssomething informative tto read?

LikeLike

Reply
cKtSqn.trendshub.xyz

August 30, 2023

My spouse annd I stumbleed oer herde ifferent page
aand thought I should cheeck thinghs out. I like wbat I ssee sso
i amm just followijg you. Lookk forward to looking at your web page for
a second time.

LikeLike

Reply
251

August 29, 2023

I read this adticle fully abojt the diffeerence off hottesst and previous technologies, it’s awdsome article.

LikeLike

Reply
Toby

August 29, 2023

I paay a viait day-to-day some wweb sites and sktes to resad articles, howver thiss webb site offedrs feature based articles.

LikeLike

Reply
Fernando

August 27, 2023

It’s going tto be end off mine day, except bbefore eending I am
reading this grdeat piece of writing tto increase myy know-how.

LikeLiked by 1 person

Reply
1. Pacific Northwest Event Design
  
  August 28, 2023
  
  Fernando, thank you for reading! I hope you find many other posts here valuable to increasing your knowledge.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Advertisements

Same Flowers Other Styles

When looking at inspiration pictures it’s quite common to hear, “I like those flowers but….” You can be inspired by a pictures, take the flowers and do something else entirely!

The same is true with a style of arrangement and switching out flowers. Or even mix and matching different styles for your event.

For example, if you remember from Making Arrangements last week, here are the pictures from some of the pieces.

This combination would have been a wonderful addition as table swag and centerpiece. This eucalyptus table runner is outside of the garden bouquet style however the greenery is the unifying factor. The focus on roses (as the floral note) also strays, but keeping it simple and with that eucalyptus still evokes the garden feel.

I wanted to bring this idea from the high end weddings (where you see the amazing pictures of 100′ table runners made from roses) to let you know that even if you’re having a garden style wedding you can still borrow from that high end inspiration picture. Make that runner out of greenery or thin willow branches and you can utilize the idea on budget materials.

Tip: If you’re making a runner or wreath like ring for your table centerpiece, make sure you secure your elements with floral wire. Then go back in and fill in around the wire with more pliable greenery, tiny budded floral bunches, or your wedding flowers of choice.

Here’s a close up of the square vase floral arrangement that I paired with the eucalyptus table runner. I want to draw your attention to this because of the red flowers that you see below the rose. This is red yarrow and I wanted to spot light it for a moment. Two posts back, Making Flowers Possible, I mentioned how the sales person had pulled additional flowers for me that had inspired her when she gathered my order. Originally I had ordered a cream like yarrow to help tie in the yellow from the sunflower and yellow roses with red tips. However this red yarrow really made these red tips on the rose just pop. My original pick would have been great. But there’s just something about being in person with flowers one selection just makes more sense when you see them in person.

Tip: If you are going to DIY your own floral arrangements, try to make it in person. And don’t be afraid to stray a little from your inspiration picture. By straying, this is what makes your arrangements reflective of you.

Before I move on to more creative renditions of the same flowers from this style, I want to show you a couple of similar ideas that are closely related.

This one I absolutely love! Still keeping with the country theme, I have the long stem roses, Red Alstomeria, spray roses, Misty Blue Limonium, and Eucalyptus.

If I could do one thing, I would love to move people away from baby’s breath and urge them toward Limonium. It has the baby’s breath look in an arrangement but it gives a few features that are interesting to look at. I love how Limonium has a cascading effect of its blossoms. Think of old fashion candelabra and you’ll get a general idea of what you see when you look closely to these flowers. But even better than it’s structural beauty, these flowers have shades of color that is beautiful and doesn’t come from the flowers sitting in dyed water.

For this bouquet, I opted to dress it up with a deep red vase and ribbon collar. These accessories take the garden bouquet style and dress it up from a garden style to a vineyard style. It’s still on the rustic side, but just dressed up enough.

Tip: Your choice in ribbon or other accessory is going to greatly influence the tone. Remove this vase and ribbon choice and set this arrangement on top of a tall glassware vase with chandelier crystals and you’ve gone straight past garden wedding to Queen’s High Tea.

This next idea may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I wanted to show how changing up the quantity of particular flowers is going to change up the overall esthetic of your flowers. While this arrangement is highlighting the Limonium, I’ve been making similar arrangements from my personal garden. White Yarrow is my most plentiful flower that is growing. Actually Chamomile is giving it a run for its money. But my floral garden is not predominantly show stopping flowers. So if I were to keep a weekly arrangement from just my garden alone, it would look something like this; mostly small buds with accent pieces of larger flowers.

Obviously this isn’t a wedding arrangement by any means. This is a cheer-me-up or maybe a brunch arrangement.

So if you have the idea of keeping your floral budget pared down, bulking up on the smaller blossoms may or may not be what you want to aim for. This looks completely different from a bouquet bulked up with greenery sprinkled with more premium blooms.

If you want to have more of a wow piece on a budget, consider a more minimalistic approach.

Here I have a single Asiatic Lily with a sprig of Eucalyptus in a monogrammed glass tumbler.

Now if you’re looking for a wedding favor that doubles as a table centerpiece, this just might be the idea you’re looking for! Set this tumbler in a circle in the center of a table with a large pillar candle in the center and you have a budget friendly decor that pulls double duty and is absolutely elegant.

This is also a great use of Lily blooms that snap off, because let’s face it. Lilies snap off so easily if you walk too closely past them. Or you’re arranging your bouquet and you hit it funny. I’m aware of how lilies are and I still snapped off nearly a dozen blossoms.

Life happens.

Another simplistic option is this beauty with a floating candle.

To be honest, this 3″ floating candle is over kill for this 4″ wide vase. But this is what I had on hand to get this concept across.

Never be afraid of ever using a single blossom.

The trick is always to make the single flower look interesting to look at. And this is the reason why I played with the lily leaves I had ordered to offer contrast to the plethora of eucalyptus.

This arrangement is easier to see the lily leaves. The garden bouquet comes back again. But notice how when you change the focal flowers that you get a completely different feel. Over half of the bouquet here is Asiatic Lilies. But when you incorporate the blooms in different stages (open, soon to open, and still very green), it creates difference and interest almost like three different flowers even though they’re exactly the same.

Another interesting thing to notice is the floral rule of thumb of keeping flowers in odd numbers. You can’t tell with the lilies, but there is an odd number of stems. What is obvious is the single stem of purple stock. If you were to take a closer look, you will find 3 stem of Dark Blue Delphinium. And topped off with enough of the Misty Blue Limonium to fill the gaps and make this minimalistic bouquet look full.

Even though this picture is beautiful, it does the bouquet no justice. Part of the beauty that is not fully captured is just how amazing the purple complements the orange lilies. If you’ve taken an art class, you’ve heard of a color wheel. And you are familiar with how orange and purple complement each other. When in doubt, definitely use a color wheel to help choose what colors to put together. Even if it’s not a color combination that you are familiar with, these colors and flowers really do go amazing with each other.

And here is a minimalistic version of that bouquet.

This one is my absolutely favorite picture out of them all! And this is just 5 stems of Asiatic Lilies and 3 stems of Dark Blue Delphinium. I’m just going to put a pause right here so I can just stare at this eye candy just a little bit longer.

Advertisements

Besides just playing with flowers for my personal amusement (and yes, I took great pleasure in making all these), I decided that I was going to make a little something for the men in my life since I’ve been so focused on this job.

The one thing that I learned while making these boutonnieres is that men rarely get flowers from their women. And yet, it’s interesting to watch to see how they respond when you make flowers for them. My boys absolutely went gaga over waking up and finding that I had made flowers for them to wear to church. One, I made something for them and they love it when I make things for them. Two, they got to wear the flowers and it made them feel special, because no one wears flowers to church. And because these boutonnieres had magnets, they were able to move them to keep from their seat belts from crushing them. It was interesting to watch them move their flowers around.

Even my husband enjoyed having flowers to wear. He purposely went out of his way to choose an outfit to go with his flowers.

I also took the opportunity to finish using up my flowers to make these mini bouquets.

If you find that you have flowers left over, I highly recommend making simple bouquets like this and randomly handing them out to people. These flowers were made up so that my boys (while wearing their flowers) could hand them out to whoever they were inspired to hand them out to.

It doesn’t matter what day of the weeks, people go through “stuff”.

I watched from a distance as my boys picked their person.

One was another child. I was amazed because how often do children hand each other flowers. It was a perfect moment to watch.

Advertisements

Another bouquet of flowers was handed to a mom who had just checked her kids in for the next church service. Who knows how her morning had been going. (Being a mom I can just imagine the craziness we all go through.) But you could just see how her morning had been disrupted in a very pleasant way.

The last bouquet went to another mom. There’s a whole long story to this one, but the quick point is that this bouquet reminded this mom of a story of when her adult son was a little boy.

These stories may or may not mean anything to you personally. But I just want to cause a thinking moment. Here were three acts of kindness that I set my boys up to be a part of. And it was a worthwhile moment. All those were made possible because of a job I did and had left over materials. They weren’t the best of the best flowers. And yet, to these three different people they were the best flowers because they were unexpected.

Speaking of unexpected, I wanted to share this last arrangement that I made. While this is not practical for an event, I wanted to make a couture version of an arrangement.

No one says that your flowers have to look like what you see every day.

Be creative!

Look for ways to be different.

Flowers are an amazing tool.

It doesn’t matter what flowers that you have. You can create a feel with whatever is in your means to use. You can pick out specific flowers. You can select an option that is in your means to recreate something that is outside your means. You can be inspired by ideas completely outside your means and recreate within your means. And you can jump completely outside your box and come up with something new.

The bottom line is that you are not limited by your floral choices at all.

Pick the flowers that make you happy and inspire you. Set yourself up for success by engaging in prepping your flowers before your work day. Be flexible when you start assembling. Plan A may not work, and that’s okay. Move on to a backup plan without causing yourself additional stress. And don’t be afraid to mix up styles. Find a unifying commonality and create the flowers of your dreams!

One response to “Same Flowers Other Styles”

Kristopher

August 2, 2023

Hi there, I ound your ste by means oof Google at tthe
sqme tije aas looking for a comprable subject, yor siye got here up, it
lookms great. I’ve bookmarked iit inn mmy googlpe
bookmarks.
Hi there, somply became alesrt to your weblog via Google,
and locqted that it’s really informative. I amm goping
to watcxh out for brussels. I wikl bee grateful in casse yoou contiue tbis inn future.
A loot oof folks shal bbe benefited from your
writing. Cheers!

LikeLike

Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Advertisements

Making Arrangements

Talk to a florist and they’ll tell you that you just can’t throw flowers together and expect them to look good. And to the average person, we toss that comment off to the side and say, “just watch me.” And then we wonder why our DIY arrangements look nothing like the inspiration picture that we want to recreate.

Success and being free of frustration comes when we stop trying to clone a picture and just use it truly as just as an inspiration.

Color combination
Style
Form
Specific flowers and greenery

For the wedding that I’m pulling inspiration for these posts, the bride gave me this inspiration picture.

In addition to this picture the bride wanted to incorporate lilies in with the bridal bouquet and the groom’s boutonniere.

What she obviously liked about this picture was the colors and garden style bouquet. So these were the two points that drove the design work for this job.

Every florist has their own touch and esthetic. Because florists are not all the same, that is the permission that you have to stray from your inspiration picture and create with your own floral voice.

If your inspiration picture is a flower you can’t identify, strongly dislike the fragrance of a flower, or can’t source a flower, pick replacements that share the same color, size, or feel. When looking at flowers and one jumps out at you, you absolutely love, and fits in your colors, go with it! Draw inspiration from the flowers even more than you do a picture.

You want to love every flower and greenery that you purchase. When you look at the spread it should already make you smile and excited even when you haven’t done a single thing. This helps you when deciding what flowers you want to place next to each other. You will know when you like a combination. You will also know when you don’t like flowers next to each other. And this is okay. It is part of the creative process!

Advertisements

In the last post, Making Flowers Possible, we went through the process of cleaning your flowers and preparing them to assemble your bouquets. Having already done this in advance, for your assembly day, you are ready to reach and grab and assemble without fussing over messy stems.

Before we move forward I did want to link a couple videos to show you some techniques that I found were clear and easy to follow; spiral, X base (starting around the 3:30 mark), and building from different holds.

With the flowers that my husband periodically brings home for me, I’ve successfully assembled in a spiral formation and love how sleek, secure, and stem supportive it was.

For the life of me, I could not get these wedding bouquets to work with me in spiral formation. Even with fluffing, adjusting height, and rearranging floral placement…nothing was looking right.

And that is where frustration first sets in!

Advertisements

You have that image in your head about how these flowers are supposed to go together and look. And when you try all the tricks, it’s easy to think that you’re out of options. Then panic sets in. And all the overwhelmed feelings break like a damn.

That’s why I linked the above videos. There’s at least a half dozen different options available when one fails.

The spiral failed for me in this time crunch, so I modified it with the X formation. But before I went down that option, I pinpointed what was the main cause of my emerging frustration.

I had combination of flowers that I wanted next to each other. The combos were not staying next to each other no matter how I was holding the flowers.

That’s when inspiration hit and I made a trick for myself that I wanted to pass on to you!

For the floral combinations that you have to have next to each other, use your floral tape and tape them together how you want them.

You can also include greenery, or make bunches of greenery with this trick as well.

This is a particularly helpful tool when you also find that you’re struggling with keeping your bouquet symmetrical and balanced.

And if you’re that DIYer that has to have all your floral looking exactly alike, this can help you save time. You can be precise and make it easy to replicate.

Or maybe you’re having an arranging party and everyone is assembling a little too different from each other. You can totally make an assembly line and break down the arrangements into smaller pieces that you can build up as you go.

This bundle and then arrange technique is also great if you like the garden bouquet style but the fly away elements just are not your thing. It can transform a wild garden into a more manicured garden.

In what order do you want to arrange?

I mentioned before that for this wedding order I had 3 bouquets, 3 boutonnieres, 6 oversized vase floating, and 2 flower baskets.

Here’s how I made my choice of order.

Boutonnieres can use scrap pieces. So flowers where the stem snaps, greenery that you trim because it’s too long, flowerets and sprigs that are pared down because they were too full for what you need in other arrangements.

Flower baskets can also use all the flowers that snap off the stems, because you’re just using petals.

My submersible floral arrangement use only specific flowers, so I put those in reserve. And I’ve done those enough I can do them in my sleep. So I put those arrangements off to the side for when I need a break or when I’m frustrated and need a win to get myself back into a good head place.

That leaves the bouquets.

I start with the bridesmaids bouquets because it gives me time to warm up and see how the flowers are going to work with me. Plus there’s the added bonus that they are smaller.

The thing that has to be remembered though is that all the best of the best needs to be set aside for the bride’s bouquet.

As I pull stems, the perfect blossoms I put aside in a vase. The flowers with my favorite colorings, I set them aside as well.

This is especially the case with the roses. But I don’t skimp out on the bridesmaids. I aim for the middle for them. For example, the roses I needed for the bride, the bridesmaids, the boutonnieres, and the flower baskets. My lease favorite roses I left in the container for the baskets. They will be walked on and not photographed closely. The boutonnieres I make from the buds that accidently snap off the stem or left over from the bride’s reserve.

And this is the beauty of ordering extras, or a little more flowers than you need. One, it’s a buffer for damage during transit. But more importantly, it allows you to have a selection and delegate as you need.

I didn’t have mother or grandmother corsages. But how would you put them in the hierarchy of who you are saving for whom. For me, I would put them after the bride, but before the bridesmaids. But maybe you would order them after the bride and bridesmaids. That’s the decision you have to make. And it ensures that you have the quality where your hierarchy lies.

Maybe you’re doing fresh flower aisle runner. Did you want the quality to go there over bouquets, because the guests see those up close?

Again, there’s no wrong answer. You just want your plan ahead of time where the best of the best of your flowers are going to go.

And your order of assembly reflects this.

You may not want to start with your most important piece until after you’ve warmed up and gotten the feel for what you want to create. Your highest carnage of stems is going to happen in the very beginning. And again, when frustration hits. So you want to time your best pieces just right to avoid both of those casualties.

Advertisements

What to do when the frustration hits

And believe me it will hit, especially if you’re doing this DIY by yourself. It’s okay. This is normal. Nothing is wrong with you. You can do it. And keep telling yourself that this will turn out when all is finished.

Take a coffee break
Grab a snack and walk away for 5 minutes.
Eat that meal that you normally eat an hour or two ago.
Get a breath of fresh air by walking outside to check your mail. And before you open that box, take a look around and see what is going on in nature around you.

I did this job while my husband was at work and I had my kids entertaining themselves in the other room. Thankfully they’re great kids and understand that I need to focus on work. (Of course it helps that they know that they get rewarded with amazing quality time when I complete jobs, they’re so understanding even if they want the cuddles and attention now.

My kids get an honorable mention right now because I’m the type of person that gets in the zone and will neglect my needs to push through and get a job done in a more expedited manner. Mostly, this is to prevent taking advantage of my night owl tendencies. But their schedule can’t be pushed like that.

Advertisements

My kids were my built in mandatory break times. And that’s a good thing.

Their lunch time came right when I finished the first bridesmaid bouquet. It was pretty, but I wasn’t satisfied with it I wanted it better. And me being forced to take a work break to feed the kiddos gave me the step away break that I needed to process what it was that I didn’t like and obtain an idea to fix it.

Not everyone arranging flowers has kids in their space. But maybe you have a pet that needs being seen to. Maybe you have a phone call that has been pushed back long enough and it’s time to make.

Whatever you do in your normal life, be sure to continue it while you DIY your flowers. These moments are the moments that help you to refocus your mind and open the doors to inspiration and ideas that were hard pressed to come because of the tunnel vision of the focused drive.

What if something goes wrong?

Oh the stories I can tell you of things going wrong!

We always dream and envision things going smoothly and perfectly the first time. But let’s be honest, life happens.

This particular job didn’t go smoothly. In fact, I cried and I panicked. Because of course my thing that went wrong happened at night, when shops were closing down and I promised to deliver in the morning.

I was working with my submersed arrangements, enjoying the moment of doing something predictable, enjoyable, and very peaceful. I was working on my third vase when I heard what sounded like an industrial bug zapper going off. I had no idea what that was, because we don’t own a bug zapper.

My husband walked in and I told him about the noise, asking him if he knew what would make that sound. He shrugged and continued to check and see how the job was progressing. He looked over at the completed vases and asked if one of them was leaking because there was some water of the floor. I looked at him as if he was crazy. Of course there was water on the floor, I’m working with water.

Not even a minute later the bottom blew out of one of the completed vases and at least 5 gallons of water shot all over my hardwood floor.

To an outside observer, this was comedic gold! I’m talking I Love Lucy proportions.

The good news is that the flowers were perfectly fine, unharmed by what happened. And yes, the water got cleaned up.

Advertisements

The stress was that I was a vase short, shops about to close, and no one would be open in the morning before I needed to deliver. I couldn’t go to my local go to shops. They would be closed by the time I arrived. Fortunately, there was one store I could make it to before they closed that possibly had what I needed. And I felt so blessed that they had exactly two matching ones that I could work into my design and fulfill my order, better than what I originally promised.

I share this story with you to not just make you laugh. (Yes I can laugh about this now!) But to show you that even in the professional world of event designing, these things happen to us as well.

Cry in the moment if you need the cry. It will release everything you’ve locked up inside during this whole process. You will feel refreshed afterward.

Acknowledge the moment for the tragedy that it is, but don’t let it stop you or put you into a freeze where you can’t get back to work.

What resources do you have to pull from to recover?

Is this obstacle something you can replace?

Can you still function with what it is that you have?

Call in the assistance of a loved one to be the clarity of mind that you are not in this moment. Loved ones are amazing people to act as support. Never forget or underestimate the people that surround you.

The photos for this week are from the wedding floral that I did for the inspiration picture at the beginning. The bride wanted to go with the garden style of floral. But I don’t want you to leave today thinking that this is the only way to use these beautiful flowers.

Next week I’m going to show you the different styles that I created with the left over flowers from this job. I can’t wait for you to show you these different inspirations that you can take and make for yourselves. Plus, I have one that is a couture shot! It’s not practical for a centerpiece, but it was sure fun to photograph.

See you next week!

Is there anything you want directions on how to build when it comes to floral design? Comment below!

Here are some Products that can assist you in your floral arranging.

This post contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commissions on products purchased through these links, but at no extra cost to you. These items listed here are from Amazon but may be purchased at local markets and floral wholesaler.

Rose Cleaner Rose Stripper Thorn Remover Stem Cleaner Tool

I have this tool. It works for cleaning the stems of more flowers than just roses.

Premium Garden Shears

The larger shear is the one that I use for trimming larger flower stems and branches of greenery.

Floral Arrangement Kit

This is a good starter kit that has everything that is useful for making arrangements.

1/2″ Wide Floral Tape

This is a must have, even if you’re trying not to buy any extra items. I’ll go more into this next week. The trick to this tape is that you stretch it to make it sticky.

2 responses to “Making Arrangements”

JohnnyAtorm

September 14, 2023

The excellent answer, gallantly 🙂

——
rajabet.com app download

LikeLike

Reply
Same Flowers Other Styles – How I Can Do That

July 29, 2023

[…] example, if you remember from Making Arrangements last week, here are the pictures from some of the […]

LikeLike

Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Advertisements

Making Flowers Possible

When I participate in wedding open houses, one of the most common things I would hear is “I/We can make that.”

Each and every time I heard that phrase I cringed. It didn’t matter if I heard it when I worked for an event decorating company (where I participated in over the top large event decorating) or when I branches out on my own. This phrase makes every professional cringe.

Just like a plumber who hears someone say, “Oh that’s easy! I can do that and save on a plumbing bill.” That plumber is not only cringing, but he’s laughing at you and thinking that he’ll see you in a day or two. You might very well fix that plumbing issue. But experience says that it’s a DIY plumbing job that will go wrong. And instead of paying a couple hundred dollars to the plumber, it’s a couple thousand dollar repair for a DIY “fix”.

That’s one reason why I started this blog. I like to contribute to the creative community, pass on skills that aren’t generally being passed down anymore, but also to help the DIY person succeed.

Here’s a glimpse of how you might receive your flowers from a distributor.

Here’s the thing, a professional is going to have inside deal on material costs and more importantly the knowledge and muscle memory on how to do a particular skill. They’re going to know the short cuts that save time. They also know all the wrong ways of doing things, know how to recover from a failed idea, and when to move on to the next idea in an expedited manner.

Is it possible for you to do your own wedding flowers?

Absolutely!

(The following pictures are the flowers that I used for this job. I’ve included names if any of these are unfamiliar to you. There are so many beautiful flowers in this world! Please don’t be limited by the ones that you see here. In these pictures I’m showing how I strip the stems bare in my prep work. I’ll talk about that in just a moment.)

I’m going to spend the next couple of weeks talking you through how you can make your own floral arrangements. I won’t share all of my trade secrets because I still love playing with flowers, but I want to help you avoid a head ache or two, plus a panic attack. I DIY most everything for my wedding and still after all this time, I remember the melt downs I had, especially when it came to the wedding invitations.

The stress on a DIY bride is real. So I want to help you, so that you can trust to come to me when you need a professional.

First things first, you have to prepare before you start.

The best way to kick start this is by having an inspiration picture. This will help you navigate through the online sites where you can order flowers to be shipped to your house or when you talk with a flower producer/distributor.

You might not know the names of the flowers you want to order.
You might be able to find a deal on a look alike flower.
There could be a budget friendlier alternative.
You can upscale with a rarer look alike.
An out of season option can be switched out with an in season look alike.

Inspiration pictures also give an idea on which flowers look good together. Nothing is worse than ordering flowers that you like individually but when you put them together, something just isn’t right.

Even with this wedding, which I made floral arrangements for last weekend, I went into my local flower distributor with a list of flowers I picked out (to imitate an inspirations picture) from online. But when I looked at the flowers in the walk in cooler, there were other ones that jumped out and added further inspiration so I couldn’t wait to arrange. When it came time to pick up the sales person helping me pulled a couple of additional bunches of other flowers that my flowers insured her with. From that additional pull, there was a different flower or two that looked better in the collective whole than the ones I originally thought I wanted.

(I’ll come back to this thought in two weeks when I show you additional arranging options using the same flowers!)

Once you’ve put in your flower order, you’ll want to schedule your pick up with a minimum of two days before your wedding or other special event. You will most definitely need two days if not three to make your arrangements. I don’t play with flowers every day and this job took me two days and some touch up work on the day of before loading up the flowers for the wedding.

Advertisements

The Schedule I Gave Myself:

Day 1 Thursday–I picked up my flower order from my distributor. I took them back to my work space and got out buckets and vases and filled them with water. Then I went straight to work to prep my flowers for the next day.

Day 2 Friday–I spent all day arranging.

Day 3 Saturday/Wedding Day–examine all the bouquets and other arrangements. Does anything than to be adjusted or flowers switched out? Put on decorative elements, such as ribbon. Cut fresh ends, place in fresh water, and load up for morning delivery.

Your DIY arrangement schedule may need more time. You may need to start your prep work on a Wednesday, so you have an additional work day. The important thing to remember is that these flowers are going to take longer than you think they will.

If you are a bride who wants to do everything yourself, this schedule is probably something similar to what you will need to implement. If you like working in groups and want to make a flower arranging day, it might be possible to do this in one day. After all the more hands you have, the less work and time is required from you. Just be prepared that if you have others working with you, nothing is going to look the same. There will be variations in assembly and placement. So please make your choices based off of your expectation level. This will give you the least amount of stress and make DIY floral arranging more pleasurable.

For this wedding I made 3 bouquets (that were doubling as table centerpieces), 3 boutonnieres, and 6 large submersible vases.

Advertisements

Preparing Your Flowers

Hopefully when you pick up/receive your floral delivery, the flowers were kept cool in transportation. Heat is going to make your flowers wilt. But don’t stress out! They will bounce back. The Purple Stock that I used was the bunch that wilted the most in transportation. They were the first bunch that I stripped the stems, cut the bottom of the stems at a 45° angle, and put in water in front of an air conditioner.

Prep your stems first, so the flowers can drink while you’re prepping other stems.

If your event is in this wonderful summer heat, you will want to make sure that you keep your flowers in a cool room. Heat is not your friend with many types of flowers. So if you’re event is outside in hot weather, also make sure that the flowers you use are hardy and won’t wilt in the heat.

At the bottom of this post, I’ll post some links to items that can be helpful not just for prepping your flowers but also items that you will need for assembling (the topic for next week) your floral arrangement.

So trimming the bottom of the stems at a 45° angle is what all florists will tell you is the optimum cut to allow your flowers to drink and hydrate themselves while you are working with them. By cutting at the bottom portion of the stem, you leave yourself length for making tall arrangements and giving yourself plenty of room to make additional trims if your flowers need another stem clean up.

Make sure that your scissors are brand new sharp. Old scissors will mash up the bottom of your stem and you will see that you will need to make a new trim on your stems in a day or two. The flowers will just struggle. Also, gardening sheers are amazing to have on hand if you are using flowers with thick stems (roses, Asiatic lilies, sunflowers, and others). Even new scissors will struggle with these larger stems.

Cleaning up the stems is definitely a task you want to do before you start making your arrangements. There are a few different reasons why you want to clean off the stems from leaves and thorn.

Thorns hurt!
Leaves take up room–anything not around the bloom face is just going to get in the way and not be seen.
Leaves resting in water will decompose quickly and make the water look muddy.
Cut flowers drink up water and try to keep everything on the stem alive. By removing the leaves, the flower focuses on keeping the blooms beautiful and fresh.

Once all your flowers are cleaned up and in water, you’ll also want to take the time to also break down your greenery and filler into more workable sizes. Most of my eucalyptus came as branches. Baby’s breath and other floral fillers come in poufy branches also.

If you’re not a fan of baby’s breath, my current favorite is Misty Blue Limonium. It’s a tiny robust flower just like baby’s breath, but tends to have a fan shape bunching of flower. Not to mention that Baby Blue has a hint of blue that still looks white from a distance. (You’ll see Baby Blue in a picture below where I show you my flowers all prepped and ready to work with.)

Do you need to add flower “food” to the water?

Because there is product, there is going to be an industry that tells you that you need to buy this food. I personally choose not to buy the flower preservation crystals. Even with the flowers that I keep around the house, they last longer when I just use filtered water and change the water every day or two. In fact, I have a bouquet of flowers from my husband that is 3 weeks old, and all I did was change the water frequently.

Other methods I’ve tried are sugar in the water and carbonated clear soda. These two methods work just the same as the flower packet I’ve gotten with the bouquets my husband buys.

If you want to use a plant food, you’re welcome to go that route. However I don’t want to you feel pressured to buy one more thing. Good filtered water is more than enough. If filtered water is not an option either, than make sure that you have water sitting out over night before your flowers arrive. This will allow chlorine and other chemicals to evaporate out.

Now that your flowers and greenery are drinking, stems cleaned, and voluptuous bunches are broken down to smaller, more manageable sizes, you are all prepared for assembling your arrangements.

For this first night with your flowers, give them space to breath. This is valuable for flowers like Asiatic lilies, whose buds will pop off if you accidently brush them. You want to keep them cool. If you don’t have a root cellar or other cold place, you’ll want to consider a well air conditioned room.

Avoid using your refrigerator to keep any of your flowers cold. Some flowers have sensitive petals and will freeze. Another thing that is not common knowledge is that certain fruits and vegetables can also influence the overall health of your flowers. For example, onions on the sandwich you have in the fridge for lunch is more than enough to cause petals on your flowers brown. So if you have a soda cooler available at home or your wedding venue, make sure that no one has left their lunch or other meal in the cooler!

Prep all your floral and greenery into separate buckets.

Advertisements

Things To Watch Out For

The expectation when you purchase flowers to make your own arrangements is that the flowers you receive are perfect. Unfortunately, even with pesticides and herbicides used in commercial floral fields, there is going to be some damage that you may find in your flowers.

Two different diseases that I found on different flowers (rose and delphinium) in my purchase.

If you have diseased stems, you will notice this when you clean your stems. These are important to find. When you make arrangements, all your stems are right up against each other. And depending on the damage being caused by bacteria or viral infection, mold, or even burrowing pests, direct contact can potentially cause damage to the rest of your flowers. Unless you have experience working in a home garden, you probably haven’t seen instances like this and wouldn’t know how to deal with it. So the best thing to do is take these stems away and dispose of them.

This is one reason why I make sure I have a floral buffer. I have enough stems to do my job even when I have to dispose of a few flowers.

Another reason why a buffer is a great idea is that flowers can bruise.

Here are different types of bruising to look out for.

As you can see here, whether from harvesting or shipping, flowers can bruise. You might be fortunate and find that removing the outer (buffer) petals you can remove the bruised portions (which I did with the red bud.) However, it is possible that the bloom is bruised beyond an acceptable standard.

If you find blooms that are this damaged, you will want to catch this quickly! For example, I had five roses that disintegrated from severe bruising like this. The distribution center that I got these from have a policy where when you notify them/return the flowers in a 24 hour period there are options available; refund, exchange.

Before you make your floral purchase, find out what kind of return policy they have. Know in advance if there’s a chance that you’re going to be stuck with flowers that you can’t use. Is this company’s policy an acceptable risk?

Needless to say, it’s a very good practice to prep your flowers once you receive them. Not only does it help organize you and better manage your time. It also keeps the window of return/refund open for you.

As I mentioned above, even when you buy from a reputable company, your flowers may arrive in a condition that can surprise you. This picture, above, is pretty standard for buying from a field or wholesale distributer. These flowers are not damaged. This is real life. The industry calls these busted petals “buffer petals”.

Think of these petals as being your insurance policy. Roses are packaged together for shipment. Petals are going to be rumpled and discolored. When florists receive roses like this, they simply remove these buffer petals and reveal a pristine flower.

TIP: If you’re working with a budget wedding, these buffer petals (and other broken or too small flowers) are perfect for flower girl practice or even photo props for your photographer. With many wedding pictures taken before the ceremony, it’s a great option for your photographer to have a little something to play with if they’re inspired by your flowers!

Now that you’re flowers are prepared, you’re ready for a good night’s sleep!

Come back next week to get some ideas on how to construct your bouquet.

Here are some Products that can assist you in your floral arranging.

Rose Cleaner Rose Stripper Thorn Remover Stem Cleaner Tool

I have this tool. It works for cleaning the stems of more flowers than just roses.

Premium Garden Shears

The larger shear is the one that I use for trimming larger flower stems and branches of greenery.

Floral Arrangement Kit

This is a good starter kit that has everything that is useful for making arrangements.

1/2″ Wide Floral Tape

This is a must have, even if you’re trying not to buy any extra items. I’ll go more into this next week. The trick to this tape is that you stretch it to make it sticky.

What’s your favorite flowers to play with?

3 responses to “Making Flowers Possible”

wedding bouquet

August 12, 2023

I think the admin of this website is truly working hard in favor of his web page,
since here every material is quality based material.

LikeLiked by 1 person

Reply
Same Flowers Other Styles – How I Can Do That

July 29, 2023

[…] see below the rose. This is red yarrow and I wanted to spot light it for a moment. Two posts back, Making Flowers Possible, I mentioned how the sales person had pulled additional flowers for me that had inspired her when […]

LikeLike

Reply
Making Arrangements – How I Can Do That

July 22, 2023

[…] the last post, Making Flowers Possible, we went through the process of cleaning your flowers and preparing them to assemble your bouquets. […]

LikeLike

Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Processing…

Success! You're on the list.

Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.

Advertisements