The type of arrangement you choose will most likely be dictated by where the arrangement will be. For the holidays, arrangements generally fall into four categories: low profile, garlands, tall focal, and short focal.

Types of Arrangements

Low profile are perfect for centerpieces and are low to allow guests to talk to each other across the table. Depending on the table shape and length, they can be round or long. Candles and/or lanterns can also be incorporated into these types of arrangements.

Garlands are a great option if you have a very long table or are working within a budget. If you need most of your table space for dishes, you might want to choose a thinner garland that just adds a line of texture down the middle of your table. Garlands can be all or mostly greenery such as ruscus, eucalyptus, pine, or cedar. From there, you can add woodier herbs such as rosemary and thyme, pine cones, or flowers to pick up the colors in your room or add seasonal festivity.

A tall focal arrangement is perfect on a table in a large foyer to welcome guests or in the corner of the buffet table. You could go with appropriate holiday colors or choose a palette that compliments the home or room that the arrangement is in. These type of arrangements can be three-sided so the flat side backs up against a wall or all-the-way-around. The all-the-way-around variety, when tall enough, can be used as a centerpiece as it allows people to see under the arrangement while talking to other guests.

A small focal arrangement is a good choice for smaller entryways, a guest room, a powder room, or anywhere that you would like to add a pop of color and a festive spirit. These can also be used as centerpieces for smaller/round tables, or several can be used for longer tables.

Thanksgiving Flowers

I love Thanksgiving arrangements because of all the fun textural items that can be added. Mango calla lilies, red roses, orange gerbera daisies, bronze mums, and burgundy dahlias, bring gorgeous fall tones. Add a combination of cat tails, chocolate queen ann’s lace, wheat, dried lotus pods, hypericum berries, salidago, or bupleurum, and you have a unique arrangement from fall’s bounty.

Christmas Flowers

Of course red and green reign supreme in Christmas Arrangements, and mother nature has no shortage of offerings. Almost every flower comes in red such as roses, gerbera daisies, lilies, mums, and carnations. The winter season adds another layer of dark greenery that look and smell like Christmas–pine, cedar, spruce, fir, and juniper. Put these together in unique and whimsical ways. Maybe add beautiful white calla lilies for a more romantic contrast or sparkly ornaments and “ting ting” for playful festivity, and you’ve got a special arrangement to grace your home for the holiday!

Hanukkah Flowers

Mother nature doesn’t have a lot of flowers that are naturally blue, but what she does have are beautiful! Blue delphinium bring a bright royal blue that lends height and dimension to arrangements. Hydrangea come in dark and light blue hues, offer a lot of bang for the buck, and lend an elegant garden-style touch. Blue thistle is long lasting and adds fun texture, or you could try white anemones with their gorgeous blue centers. Whether you’re looking for a tall focal arrangement or a shorter centerpiece, there are plenty of holiday flowers to choose from!

Of course we are here to help! Just give us a call, and we’ll help you come up with the perfect holiday flowers!

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Bacteria is one of the biggest enemies of a flower, causing them to prematurely decay. Fresh water is the best remedy. Refresh the vase water frequently, everyday if possible, to prevent bacteria from forming. Empty the old water and refill with fresh cold water or place the vase under a faucet of running cold water until the old water displaces.

Top the vase off with water to ensure all stems are submerged and drinking water. Remove any organic material from the vase water such as leaves or petals to prevent bacteria from growing. Remove flowers from the arrangement that have wilted, dried, or developed mold.

Heat is another enemy. Florists keep their flowers in a cooler to prevent the flowers from opening or growing. Tulips for example, open and continue to grow in warm temperatures. The tulip in the photo was an inch shorter than the gerbera daisy in front of it 48 hours prior to the photo being taken. As much as you are able, keep your arrangement out of direct sunlight and away from cooking heat and vapors or heating vents.

The last component of a long-lasting arrangement is a good quality flower. We take great care to ensure we order quality flowers from quality farms. Although other places might have less expensive flowers, customers continue to order through us because of our long-lasting arrangements. To this end, care instructions are provided with every arrangement that leaves our shop!

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Dried Flower Projects

Drying the Flowers

There are three ways you can dry your flowers, depending on how you want to use them. The easiest way is to hang them upside-down in a well ventilated area. You can hang a single stem or several stems held together by twine or rubber bands.

A second way to dry flowers is to press them between absorbent paper using old books or an actual flower press. There are lots of instructional videos online showing how to do this, including this one from the University of Illinois. The best flowers for this kind of drying method are ones that don’t have a lot of bulk to them and will flatten easily. Daisies, snap dragons, black-eyed Susans, gladiolas, will all press nicely. Flowers like roses or carnations that have a bulky base do not press well.

A third way to dry flowers is using silica gel. This is a great method if you want the dried flowers to essentially look the same as the fresh flower version. You can get silica gel at any local craft store or through Amazon. Again, there are a lot of instructional videos online, including this one from MonkeySee.

Projects Using Dried Flowers

Epoxy Resin

A.K. Art & Creations

One of my good friends is a jewelry maker and just started experimenting with resin. Epoxy resin can be purchased at any local craft store or through Amazon. She has come up with gorgeous pieces from pendants to earrings. She has also created some beautiful serving trays and bowls. The resin allows her to embed different objects such as metallics, shells, and flowers.

A.K. Art & Creations

What to do when stuck at home with your children? Take a walk around the neighborhood and collect wildflowers. There are a lot of apps you can download to your phone that will identify the flower for you. Wildflowers are intrinsic to our pollinators so it’s a great opportunity to help children understand the roll pollinators play. Some wildflowers are a source of energy for hummingbirds, some food for caterpillars, and some, like milkweed, are the sole provider of shelter and a place to lay eggs for the monarch butterfly. It’s amazing what flowers you will see once you start looking for them to collect.

Preserving Bride’s Bouquets and Corsages

A lot of brides want to preserve their wedding bouquets. The two best methods for this are the hang and dry method for a vintage look or the silica gel method if you want the bouquet to look similar to the way it did on your wedding day. The stems of a bouquet are wrapped very tightly. While air and silica gel will be able to circulate between the greens and flowers on the outer-most edges of the bouquet. Air and silica gel will not be able to get between the wrapped stems. Over time, moisture at the base of the bouquet and between the stems will cause mold and deterioration.

With both methods, you will need to take the bouquet apart, dry the individual stems, and reconstruct the bouquet. While there are several local companies that preserve bouquets, it’s a fun project to do, especially when stuck at home. Just make sure to take a photo of the bouquet before you take it apart and at various points during deconstruction. These photos will help you put the bouquet back together again once the stems have dried.

You can do the same thing with your corsages from Prom or Homecoming or Daddy-Daughter Dances. If you have purchased your corsage from us, the stems are already individually wrapped with floral tape and should dry well without deconstruction. I still have my corsage from my high school Prom. I hung it upside down from my mirror the night I got home. It’s a bit brittle now so I have it in the original clam shell, but I love the vintage pink color…and of course the memories!

Memories

Another project you do with your children is more long-term. I have several copies of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I loved exploring nature and “adventuring” as a little girl so this was a well-loved book. One of my copies is a big heavy large print book that became my flower press when I was a little girl. I chose it because it was the heaviest book I had that wasn’t a Bible. Now the choice seems so poetic–wildflowers from my adventuring pressed into a book about adventuring. I included little notes with the flowers indicating where and when I collected them. Now I can flip through the pages of Huck Finn and relive my own adventures.

One of the first arrangements I made at Fantasy Floral included peonies. I wanted to save the peonies as a memory and because they were so full and gorgeous. I just wrapped kitchen twine around the end of the stems and hung them from the curtain rod at our sliding glass door. As the peonies dried, they did lose some color, but that’s what I like about them–the vintage color look. It gives the room a cottage feeling.

Once you have dried your flowers, the projects are endless! You are only limited by your imagination in what to do when stuck at home!

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DIY Bouquets

Price

If you are local, Fantasy Floral sells DIY bouquets starting at $20. These bouquets are being offered at wholesale prices much like you’d get at a grocery store but of higher quality and longevity. Let us know if there are certain colors or flowers you’d like included. We’ll put together a wrap of flowers in a wonderful array of colors, textures, and height, along with greens. Vases are an additional $5 if you need one.

What You’ll Learn

If you have children and are wondering what to do when stuck at home, get a different bouquet for each of them! It’s a great way to learn about flowers. You can look up where they come from and how they are grown. Many flowers are significant in indigenous cultures for herbal remedies and spiritual properties. You get art, agriculture, history, geography, and anthropology lessons all in one!

Tips and Tricks

Believe it or not, making a gorgeous arrangement that will last isn’t quite as easy as just throwing stems in a vase. You’ll have a blast learning though… and a greater appreciation for the talent of floral designers! We are working on a video that will walk you through the basic steps of flower arranging. Here are some tips in the meantime.

Greening

Start with “greening” your vase. We usually use bakers fern, also known as leather leaf fern, and then add the fancier greenery such as eucalyptus or salal at the end for texture. The foundation of greens is not intended to be a focal point. It provides the framework that hold the flowers in place. This is accomplished by placing the bakers fern in the vase at all different angles. The planes of the face of the leaves provide the grids that hold the flower stems.

Cutting

As you insert each flower stem, you’ll want to cut the end of the stem. Cut the bottom of the stem at a sharp angle. This does two things. It provides more surface area for the stem to absorb water It also keeps the stem from sitting flat on the bottom of the vase which prevents it from absorbing water. As you are beginning, we recommend cutting the stem a bit longer than you think you’ll need. It’s easier to make the stem shorter, but you can’t make it longer!

Arranging

Start with focal flowers, then filler flowers, then specialty greens. Use long thin flowers such as snapdragons to create height and visual interest. Many designers like to work in groups of odd numbers. Perhaps do a triangle of three tall flowers towards the top of the arrangement and a pentagon of five flowers towards the base of the arrangement.

Making the Flowers Last

Bacteria growing in the vase water is a flower’s greatest enemy so make sure to start with fresh cold water. Once you’ve finished your arrangement, there will probably be debris in the water so you’ll want to replace the water. There are two ways to do this. Grab the arrangement tightly in one hand to keep the design intact, empty the vase, refill it with fresh water, and replace the arrangement back in the vase. Or you can place the arrangement under a faucet and let water run into it until the old water is replaced with the fresh water. Do this at least every other day, and your flowers will last much longer!

Have fun!

Stayed tuned for tomorrow’s What to Do When Stuck at Home (part 2)!

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