Floral arranging can be a lot of fun with beautiful results. There's nothing like having fresh flowers to dress up your table, but if you don't have time to redo your flower arrangement as they die off, use artificial flowers. You can make beautiful arrangements that you can't even tell aren't real. Real or artificial, flowers make people happy and where is a better place for happy people than sitting around the dining room table.
Instructions
1. Decide what kind of an arrangement you want to have. You can do a simple arrangement in a vase or something more dramatic in a fancy pot or container. You can have fresh live flowers or go with the artificial variety. You could even do both, have an artificial arrangement with some real flowers in it. Once you know what you want you can go shopping for the supplies.
2. Buy your supplies. You can get fresh flowers at a florist or even at your local Wal-mart. They usually have a package of life extender attached to the flowers. You can get a vase, pot or container at your department stores too, but you will find a larger variety at a craft store. This is where you will want to buy any artificial flowers also. They have everything and they look so much more real than the flowers at the department stores. Pick out colors that complement each other and match your dining decor and get a bunch of different greens.
3. Put your fresh flowers in a tall vase to measure and take them back out. If they are too tall you can cut them. Put some water in your kitchen sink. Place the stem you're going to cut under the water and cut with clippers or scissors at an angle. Fill your vase half way with water, put in you life extender and mix. Place your flowers back in the vase and put your taller flowers on the inside working out as the flowers get smaller. Arrange the baby's breath throughout. Put your leaf stems in the back to show off your flowers. Now you have a simple fresh flower arrangement.
4. Soak your floral foam and get out your pot or container. Once your foam has soaked up some water cut it with a knife to fit into your pot almost to the top. If your container is shallow and wide, clip your greens so they don't stick up very much and stick the stems into the foam, covering the foam so you can't see it anymore. Clip some flowers so they are taller the greens and stick into the foam, spreading them around. Clip the rest to be a little taller and use sparingly so as not to cover up the first flower. Another arrangement using shallow containers is to use long greens out both sides. Put in your biggest flower toward the front and in the center and fill in with smaller flowers and greens. Keep your foam damp.
5. Use a taller container and put in your wet foam. Cut your tallest flower or greens to three times the height of the container. Put them towards the back. Use your biggest bloom for the center and front, center flower being taller than the front. Fill in with a smaller bloom and some greens that drape over the sides of the container. Don't be afraid to take them out and rearrange them to get the right look. It will take some practice, but just remember to use lots of filler greens and small blooming stems. The fuller it looks, the better.
6. Use artificial flowers. You can do the same thing with as you did with the fresh flowers, just don't soak your foam. You will still need to use it to hold the flowers in place. You can even put a few drops of essential oil on the foam to give your the smell of real ones. Rose and gardenia are favorite oils to use. Be creative and you can make a beautiful arrangement for your table.
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