Take everything you think you know, or have been told about florals and throw it in a pile – you might actually use it later, but theres more to it.
After I decided to dedicate my spare energy to learning all things flowers I was consumed and wildly impatient as my seedlings were in the early stages of growing. I needed another outlet to channel my energy and opted to learn another element of working with flowers. I set my focus on the art of floral arrangements.
Flowers, vase, scissors, seems pretty straight forward, right? Wrong. You’ll find that every source teaching tips and tricks on floral arranging (at least the free tutorials on various blogs and YouTube) follow a general process:
Greenery
Line Flower
Focal Flower
Secondary Flower
Filler
Dive deeper, deeper, deeper into the rabbit hole. The right and wrongs of order of operation. When and when not to use certain tools. The controversy over floral foam. Choosing the right vessel. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by text book processes, but you can only know so much before you have to get your hands dirty. I often get lost and intimidated in the sea of information (have you caught on to the common theme?) preventing me from even starting, but not this time!
Battling between two truths, there is no “right” way and this is the way – one thing that stands true and it comes from the wise Dalai Lama, “Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively”. The perfectionist in me is absolutely constantly screaming at me to “be more professional”. For who? This is only a hobby… for now! Maybe for future me, I guess?
(Thinking of turning every hobby into a side hustle – is this a symptom of society, or of being a Capricorn?)
SPOILER – I didn’t know the rules, and I still don’t claim to know the rules. I’m just out here having fun playing and adoring all the beautiful flowers I now have the pleasure of having around.
After drowning in a sea of opinions on correct process and technique, I gave myself a challenge to just start. Start making floral arrangements. What is the worst thing that could happen? I decided to use my job as an excuse to partake in frivolous spending. It doesn’t hurt to have a beautifully set and decorated table in the reception hall at a wedding venue while giving tours. Creating (almost) every week allowed me to take the pebbles of information I’ve absorbed and try my hand.
I will say, the flowers themselves do most of the heavy lifting in creating something beautiful, I mean LOOK!
I can’t lie, only a few of these have made it into the venue. I could make excuses, but instead I’ll just make it my goal to better fulfil that end of my bargain I made with myself.
I plan to post more detailed breakdowns of a few of my favorites, where the flowers are from, if I had a vision, what vision I may have been trying to achieve, and why your vessels and tools matter more than you may think. So far, this has been love to have as a consistent bright spot of my week and I look forward to creating not only for myself, but maybe hopefully for others too!