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Bouquet Design Basics

We talked about the palate really? I mean, I wanted a soft palate and I wanted to use something that was, you know, in the pinks for this wedding for the bouquet and at the same time wanted to bring out some of the colors that were within my my arrangements like this or these in here the inside of these run oculus and I think I would like to do that with these over here on a cz well, as these the stage so if you look at this it's not all one color it's different shades and I think that once I put this all together you will see why it is that I chose these different colors because the different you know, this darker will bring out the beauty beauty of these ones over here on the white next to the pink will show how pink this actually is, and also the texture is very important because as you can see there's a lot of different textures in my choice of flowers and foliage, so once I start putting it together, I think it will make more sense. Um, I would love that. Yeah. Questions. Yeah, so...

me one day when you're at the market and your sort of have the color palette in mind and you're gonna be inspired by what looks best, when do you know when you have enough you know I mean I tend to go on a quest you keep trying and then you're like when do you know if it's maybe too much or I'm no okay well for me I I tend to do more than less as you can see here I mean you could easily make it okay with these four things here but because I want something lush I choose more than less so once I mean for me it's like I would say at least ten items that will go within a bridal bouquet hi you know happy a one two three four five six seven eight nine ten, eleven and there is one that's been left out which I want here before we finish the bouquet and that's to silence the little balls s o I've got twelve here and that's my regular number for this for the type of flowers and foliage I will choose thank you yes, I may ask um do you ever are you ever concerned with garden cut flowers of wilting because you know certain to be in the summertime and yeah that's why you don't see with syria in here because like I would love to use mysterious forever okay it's so lovely but I know that it would wilt some garden cut flowers don't wilt like this is from the garden and it's lovely and it doesn't well so I'll be sure to use it or fuchsia that looks lovely on it doesn't wilt. So you just have to kind of know your garden flowers on dh. Yeah, I'll use mysterion for for a arrangement that's going to be in flour and water, but that's the problem with the garden cuts sometimes, and actually, we're talking about followers being sort of in a certain state. We have a question from poppy hill for wedding flowers. She purchased the flowers that are a bit older or the ones that are fully open. Or do you buy the brand new flowers? I buy brand new flowers, but two to three days before the wedding and and that's a great question, because you really want your flowers in full bloom and at their maximum beauty, and that only happens when they're in full bloom. So I, for example, I you know, I would buy peonies two days ahead. First day they go in a cool area second day, I'll take a look at him and say, well, you know what these air not going to open unless they're in warmer environment, so then I'll put him somewhere warmer on by the day I'm making them, they're going toe look their best and in bloom, so full bloom. Now we have a few or preparation questions if you know you mentioned before about having gloves and you like to have that and we have people online who have all different backgrounds and different levels and some people are just getting started. Mandy winter wants to know what tools are necessary when you're just getting started. If you're going to the store, what kind of things should you buy for preparation? Okay, that's a great question this is the most important tool to me, my shears, I couldn't live without them, I'm always losing them, but I couldn't live without them. Um if and off course you could have I mean, I have this regular scissors here just so I can cut ribbons and things like that with it if little tape is important when you're making a bouquet, although to me this is the most important twine because how I do it most people most flores might use this to wrap up their entire bouquet, but I just use a piece of twine to wrap it all up and then I'm done so really to just get started, maybe a pair of gloves and your shears and all this two things that I just explained and that's relatively inexpensive to purchase? Yes, I believe these shears were twenty something I don't know you guys got him, yeah fifteen fifteen dollars and they have worked so well for me I don't do such a good job at keeping them clean if you want it to last long make sure you keep them clean after you're using them um each time and wipe them clean and then yeah, I mean, it doesn't cost that much at all and then so so you have you have your flowers and you said you you get them a few days ahead of time where do you keep them? So I keep them and a fridge and my garage which is the coolest part of the home and it's really important to once you bring your flowers home and you're unwrapping them from the martin all of that to make sure that you have you cut them in an angle and put them in fresh water and store them because it's important how you store them um in their beauties last thing so and so and actually the vina excuse me veena de v design I think I got that one. Are you going to actually be covering any hardening of the flowers or do you just let them then be and keep him in a cool place either in the garage or yeah that's all I do all I do is I think, as I mentioned it's very important to caught them in an angle and make sure that they get enough water and that's all they need to do to prepare ok god and those flowers didn't have any thorns on in the roses that's because we we prepared these ahead of time but I we went ahead and used a d thorner trash I don't have here right now but it's something that you could just pull the thorns with like this off of the stems and makes life very much easier because you don't put yourself with thorne's while trying to make a lovely bouquet right and I guess if you are a rose lover that might be one more thing to add to your kit is that d thorner and maybe some kleenex for every once in a while I'm curious now you say that when you have these you keep them in your refrigerator or somewhere cool are you just placing them straight into a bucket is there some sort of way that you wrap them when you're storing them no wrapping just inside buckets okay yeah just regular tap water vega tap water make sure your buckets aren't too dirty um you know you haven't had some flowers that kind of rotted in there and you just kind of raise your buckets and that's what he saw some florists use just a little bit of bleach I've never done it just the thought of bleach in flowers I don't like it but I'm sure it works because a lot of people have used them use it bacteria? Yes, very little and I mean, like probably a couple of drops in a big bucket, but it is important when you're when you're working with these materials to work with ones that that work for you. Yes, right? Because this is your your experience? Yeah. That's right there are students have any questions about prep? You know, this is definitely a good time to ask about prep questions. Now they're just ready to help rachel. Well, I would love to hear what the other designers in the room do for storing because keeping flowers cool and in your house you know, I'm very low tech. My flowers go in a bucket in front of a fan in my hallway. I don't have a lot of space, so I love to hear other ideas for storing them. If I'm going to be purchasing them a couple days in advance of an event, we have a very small house over in the space. I have done the same thing, just putting them in buckets and put him in the downstairs or the garage where it's darker and cooler, but the fans a great idea to unfortunately we live in a climate for being at that war so flowers to the last longer but I have moved in air conditioner into my studio before when it was young and sometimes I have taken flowers and put them inside a small bathroom with the heater on because they wouldn't open and I wanted them open so I mean, being in california we really haven't good because it's not that hot um so yeah, and you were actually talking about you know, what you think about when in designs but you work with a lot of clients how how does that work in the process of communication when you are inspired or you go to the march or your garden and something gets your juices going, how do you work with that file flower man wants to know I have been I mean, I have been fortunate enough to work with clients who really trust me and love my style so whatever for the most part, whatever I say kind of goes and that's really fortunate I love that because it is because of that that I'm I'm inspired to just go out of the box and do whatever it is that I do. So any time I've come up with something on my own, it has been a winner so it's gotten me more kudos and just, you know, I go with the flow and I make sure that that that client is not they're usually not very hands on they just say, well, you know here's what I want and go do what you do best andi I guess how do you think that would work if let's say it's holiday time and you know how it is when all the women come around and everybody's got their creative ideas, how does that work if you can share some of your I mean I go if I find something that I think well, maybe this bride might not like it I'm not sure I'll take a picture and I'll send it to her so hey, you know, I came across this what do you think? I think we really unique if we use this in your bouquet on dh most of the time it's been oh yeah, that would be lovely or I'm not sure about it, so but I've never really you know come across any problems maybe because I've been lucky because you communicate really well I mean it's their day on it's their wedding so they should definitely have a say in it we have another storage question here from a fox and they want to know can you store all of your flowers together? Do you have to store them separately depending on the types of flour? Now I know it was things even when you store like bananas next to apple, sometimes they can cause the bananas right better things like that are there any reactions if you have flowers next to each other I try not to put them all together and that's just a personal preference for me because I want to see everything in a separate bucket so I can tell what I have in front of me but in general I do recommend putting them all separately and not together because sometimes you know, some flowers have some sort of a milky uh I don't know what you call that but there's this yeah it's sap and I don't want that getting mixed with some other flower in there and it's just better to keep you don't be risk free and keep them separate wonderful that you had a question yeah it's kind of a shift of gears but I was just curious how you came about even getting clientele how you got your first client was that word of mouth that just started to spread its my blawg I about a year ago I started doing a blawg of mainly deny wise every other day I mean of course for me it was an amazing thing because I would go to the morgue and I say oh my gosh I have to use these I might not have a client but I'm just going to do this so lovely so then it turned out to be a pre popular way for me to um expose myself and it is through this blogged that I'm here today basically because people have gotten to know me through my block and there are a lot of actually die wise on my block I'm half of my blood rd I wise you have my post so you could definitely check that out to the peanut dot com for more inspiration yeah it's amazing what you do with the internet these days way just we do have so many questions this is such an amazing engagement so we do have a lot of rights out there that are considering you know doing this for themselves or having help from friends but they want to know how how many dizzy want to know how many flowers do you buy for a normal wedding? We know you got twelve different flavors but how many? So you know it depends on the number of guests first of all or the number in this case since we're talking about bouquet is the number of um brides, maids and all of that for example if you know if I have a party of five you know bridesmaids and bridal bouquet that six full case I have to make and so with these I have gotten which was today we have about six or five bookcase so we bought about seven bunches of these we got about four bunches of the rose is um I got five bunches of peonies four bunches of a still the and basically four bunches of all of those about everything that you see here and then as faras what do you know how you build how much you buy for building several pieces? Well that again depends on how many tables you have and whether it's ten tables or four tables it's just depends. We have a lot of people here curious about your wedding experiences now what's the most challenging wedding you've ever done the flowers for has never been one that for you yeah, I did a wedding in long island last year it was completely out of my comfort zone it was hot back to the weather thing it was, you know, ninety degrees in the middle of july and so I ordered my flat and it was a huge huge venue it was in the castle so he could castle we had to go and rented a big truck that was refrigerated so you know, we've we landed in new jersey, we picked up the truck in new jersey we went all the way to long island in traffic in new york at six o'clock in the afternoon that in and of itself was a hurdle to get over on dh then it was me working inside a refrigerated truck for two days straight well wants the flowers got there it was actually getting them all out of boxes and getting them prepped, putting them in buckets making sure they don't die so I would say that was challenging on then I told myself if you can do this, you can do anything when it comes to weddings, you can do anything good advice for sure that stretch you maybe maybe even farther than you knew and I guess that isthe it's all about stretching here, you know, stretching your creative ability just seeing what you khun dio I agree on speaking of seeing what what you can do, our students have been working hard to prep for their flowers what do you think of their work today? We want to check in on them and sure I will show you how they got you here. I think you've done amazing um maybe give them some pointer if there's something like there was some more, you know, over here and you conclude that a little bit more because we want needed this long in the uk these look good, you can cut things a little bit more to that it was getting getting your way were you trying to build two along a fairly long way to maybe we can cut he's a little bit more to or going through some of these ongoing dying. This is great to have someone critique your work on the spot and you know you don't have to worry about you get it right, we've got an expert here to help us and, uh, building but you've done wonderful so far really? This is something that you can follow along with you know at home and just you know uh me made it easy for all of us can thank you for having me I'm curious to know from the students here do you each have sort of a kit of tools and a work station for you to arrange flowers at home? Do you already have a set up in your in your current location I e o I this is my favorite tool and I have a bigger one for branches for branches for sure you have that I do yeah and wire that's going to use what do you use wire for? Oh, for though it's like if I wanted that to stand up and say and you know they came in from eva she said, do you recommend wiring flowers and bouquets and are there certain types of flowers that increase the stability because of my style which is the free flowing natural kind of wilder style? I don't wire any flowers with the exception of succulence because they don't have any stems and so I have to make its them for them to be within two to stay within the arrangement within the bouquet so otherwise I kind of like it that this is you know, this is like this because it it enhances my my way of designing which is that natural again faith flowing way and I know one thing that you didn't mention in your kid was having floral food and renee wanted to know do you use floral food to lengthen the life of your flowers? Um no not really sometimes I might those powders I don't even know what the name of it really work I'm always curious to know if that doesn't I don't because I have done it both ways and I haven't seen a difference all I know is that if if you if you have fresh flowers cut out of the garden or even know that they've come fresh from you know the market you don't need anything they'll be fine I think them something that I've learned is it's about making the cut and then getting it back into the water when that cut is fresh and that's what's going to encourage it to drink exactly the flower food is sort of a way to augment your process but really it's about acting quickly so have the bucket ready as soon as you cut it and put it in yeah the cleaning bucket of water exactly and like donna said what does that cut again to make it just cut it in an angle so that he could drink easily and then right in the water yeah okay beautiful. Anything else? Yeah we just want to know all about prep and here you have a tip that you have about press because I mean, this is where we start building the way we want to build the foundation. So house? Well, eso basically I you know, like I said, I have it all just prepped so that I could go for it as I'm making it on this seems this is a good setup for me, it's way better than it is in my studio because in my studio is a lot more crowded. I didn't prep these because I didn't have them at the time, so I'm going to prep these and I'm going to tell you about what they are, these air called silent and I absolutely love them. They are so beautiful, we look at these balls, they're so pretty on there, just delicate, and so I'm going to go through some of these and take the dead ones out and make my silence look a little bit more happy they're a little bit hard toe separate, but they look really amazing inside bouquets for that texture that I was earlier talking about have a question, so well, well, we're on flowers. Yes, I'm some designers come the philosophy of pulling out seattle's I don't like that I leave mine yeah, I unless it looks really brown and wilted, I won't touch it because it's, a part of the flower way, adds that organic look and I looked at these earlier, and they look fine to me, so I'm not going to touch them, but if you had, like, sometimes I don't know if the juliet garden roses they get really brown on the side, I'll pick and pick one or two, but otherwise no, I don't do that. Where did you get your initial inspiration from? Did you start building pinterest board? Did you look at magazine? No, my biggest inspiration is I really wishes are she is a garden style floral designer she believe that she is one of the first florists. Hoo ah, really kind of started this this revolution of using fruits on branches and anything you confined in the garden for your floral designs and she's the one that I really look up teo and admire. So that's, where my inspiration really is for design goes now with another preparation question here. Obviously you are preparing for when you're actually arranging thie bouquets. Yes, but what is the percentage of time that you spend on prep like when you're doing a typical wedding? How much of that is spent on press? But how much is spent on arranging there's? Actually a lot of prep time that I mean prepping well will help you do your work easier, so when you're if you're not if I'm not prepared here I'm trying to make it okay you know I have to just kind of stop what I'm doing and pick a leave off of my stem or you know, it just it helps me do they get to the fun part easier and get it all you know but it takes a long time to prepare especially if you've got bigger weddings it takes a while but if you do a good job then it pays off it's worth the investment that time prior to exactly and if you can afford it I recommend you know, bringing you know, an extra set of hands or two all right, we have one more question here. Okay, I know you probably live pretty close to where the market flour marketing but for someone that may be is an hour or so away from the market do you recommend that they bring buckets with then when they pick up the floor ease and I bring buckets when I go for certain flowers because, like, for example hella bora they are just they die so quickly and those were one of the flowers that you just cannot keep out of, you know, out of the out of water so I always have some buckets or I just those asked asked those guys tow giving their buckets and I promised to bring it back and they do their they're nice to me but yes, I definitely recommend especially if you live that far from the market, because then it's a waste of your money on your time, okay, you get home and it's all wilted, I found since I started designing, as I always have buckets in the back of my car and a bottle of water so I can just dump it into the back and if I, we're really close to the market where we are here and so have I come into work, I might feel tempted to stop in it's fun all of these little tips that that I'm hearing that, you know, you don't really think about you don't think about all of these the's things that you can do to enhance the process and make it easier for yourself and I don't know about kiana, but if I was doing all this time prep, I gotta have my playlist there. Oh yeah, I believe you have music. Music is the first thing that goes on the minute I say here's, my routine, I get up really early, I go to the flower mart, I'm usually there by five thirty six o'clock and then I get my flowers I come home, I take my children to school and that's around eight thirty then I come home, I have a cup of coffee the music goes on and the work begins yeah, and that's the way to do it. I mean, this is the office that you've created for yourself. Yes. How on anything that's, my office and the entire home is my office. When there is a wedding, the entire house is filled with flowers. Kitchen dining room downstairs upstairs the deck. Now, what happens to your children though are they playing work for kids and their helpers? They are my helpers. You know, I have my greatest helpers in my family. My husband who has been my number one fan and supporter in any way you could possibly imagine. And then my children, who will you know, maybe they'll complain about being in a bucket of bucket or two up to help me, but they'll walk by and say, just out of the blue oh, mom, that looks really beautiful and to me that's the greatest compliment coming from my children, any tips that you would give on, you know, maybe inspiring your children a little bit or getting them involved so my kids are very involved because from day one I have gotten they like it. I mean, I have three kids one of them is very much into gardening with me on just, you know, we have boxes of vegetables and ah, garden that we maintain so he's very much into that. And he he'll go to his school and garden and hope he brought home two bags of lettuce and things from his school garden for us because he was so interested and the other ones to, you know, in their own way, um, I get him involved. I asked them to help me. I asked him to garden with me. And what better than that to do with your kids? Way had one more question coming here from alexandra, and they were asking about the home set up. Now you mentioned having flowers in the kitchen and the dining room everywhere. Now, how would you suggest a work space of someone is just starting from scratch? Is there like an ideal work space in your head? Well, for me, I am I have a work space and that's in the in the basement, but I don't use it because I like light when I'm working on it very dark, you know, area where I have my space to work, so I like to work where I'm upstairs, where there is light on dh, where I can take care of my kids and when they come in and out eso, I guess. Just you have to see what works for you what what is it that you you you know what is your environment you have kids do you have space in your kitchen? Yeah just wondering if you've ever encountered any physical issues as far as you know back pain or depending where you put the bucket because I know I did a wedding once and really an hour into it my back was so sore and how am I going to get through the days so don't even go over that that's something that I mean I suffer from chronic back pain on dh that could just be who I am I never stop I don't you don't ever see me sitting in the middle of the day unless I'm driving my kids somewhere or picking him up on don't have constant back pain I'm not much you can do about that especially when you have a job that you're on your feet constantly so a lot of advil okay and I stretch and I try to what I have a dog I walk my dog so if I'm tired and I don't want to be standing up all day I'll just take my dog for a walk or yeah great now chiana we've gotten all the prep work done here we're prepared to start arranging are there any final thoughts on preparation before we wrap up this second? Well I think when we covered everything pretty much. But just one thing I can say about prep is that you really need to have everything ready to go so that you can have a smooth session of putting things together. That helps you.