It’s National Flower Arranging Day! And we encourage everybody to get involved!

So we won’t deny that there’s a skill involved with more elaborate floral displays or arrangements (there’s a reason it takes a few years to qualify!) but flower arranging isn’t always complicated or just for trained professionals. It’s fun, creative and, as long as you keep it simple, easy to create something impressive.

To celebrate National Flower Arranging Day, we’ve come up with five, simple ways you can have a go at flower arranging at home to create effective and dramatic table centres that won’t fail to impress friends, family and even yourself!

1. Step away from the vase…

Table centres can be made from the most weird and wonderful items. Have fun with your arrangement and try using alternatives to a vase such as tin cans, jam jars, food canisters, wooden crates, tea cups or even fruit like pineapples! A charming container can enhance the simplest of arrangements.

 

    2. The more the merrier

Why stop at one vessel? Table centres don’t necessarily have to come in one piece. Mismatched vases, bottles, decanters, or votives clustered at the centre or scattered along the middle of your table look amazing.

*Top-tip, if you’re mis-matching your vessels, keep the theme of your blooms united, for example using all foliage or just flowers in shades of pink. This will give you a professional finish*

 

       3. Think big!

Don’t feel like, as an amateur, you can only work small. Branches are so easy to work with, all they need is a trim of the stem and quick prune to get rid of any unwanted leaves, and yet they create so much drama. You could use trailing ivy to soften the edges of your branch, interspersing the arrangement with tea lights for added twinkle. Tall vases are perfect for upright branches although they will need to be weighed down with decorative sand. And, if you’re really trying to impress, you could wire individual flowers or stems onto branches, or hang open baubles on the branches with either tealights or bloom heads inside with a little bit of water. Gorgeous!

 

    4.  Every wreath way

Wreaths are not just for Christmas. Turn your wreath into a table centre by laying down and putting a church candle or hurricane vase in the middle. Even simpler, buy a ready-made twine wreath and add a few delicate stems. Even single stems of eucalyptus or herbs such as rosemary tied to a home-made twine ring can look stunning. If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, the Flower Lounge runs seasonal wreath making workshops, where our expert florists guide you through creating a stunning floral wreath that you can take home and wow your friends and family with. After I created Kate Higham’s flowers for her beautiful wedding, she was inspired, and decided to come along to one of my workshops. You can read about her experience here.

 

    5.  Maximum impact – minimum effort!

If you want a table centre that’s easy to create, takes no time at all, and is budget friendly then big-headed blooms are definitely for you! Hydrangea, gerbera, roses, chrysanthemums all look brilliant in tea-cups, bud vases, buckets or tea light holders, either as trimmed, single heads or on mass.  You could consider playing with vessels at different levels and introducing different shades for texture, but other than that, they require little else!

 

Although we could talk about flower arranging forever, we have just a few, final words of wisdom. Whichever table centre you choose to create, flower arranging is much simpler if you focus on having fun with the container or use floral foam to hold things in place.  Try not to get too caught up with ‘rules’, for example, colour mixing or number of stems, focus on what’s visually pleasing to you. And don’t be tempted to pack flowers in too tightly – this can make an arrangement look stifled, instead, give them breathing room and use foliage or stems with smaller flowers or buds to fill in gaps.

We hope this blog has inspired you to try your hand at flower arranging at home. If you find you catch the flower arranging bug, we’d love to see you at one of our future workshops. As well as our popular wreath sessions, we also do vase designs and hand-tied bouquets. You can see the full listing and book here on Eventbrite. Run by award winning florist, Siân Wild, owner of The Flower Lounge and top floral designer Mark Entwistle, each two-hour workshop is limited to 8 people and begins with a demonstration on how to choose, prepare, wire and arrange your flowers before embarking on your own fabulous arrangement. Definitely one for those who like getting creative or keen to learn a few florist trade secrets!

In the meantime, we’d love to see any of your creations on National Flower Arranging Day and beyond, so tag us in any photos and use the hashtag #flowerlounge. Enjoy!

Photos courtesy of Jonny Draper