Lessons

Lesson Info

Flower Prep: Basics of Bouquet Design

We we talked about the palette 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, um, these in here the inside of these uh, pron oculus and I think I would like to do that with these over here on a swell 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'll make more sense. Um, I would love that yeah question yea...

h, someone doing when you're at the market and you're I sort of have the color palette in mind and you're going to be inspired by what looks best when do you know when you have enough you know what I mean I tell to go on in question you keep buying and then you're like when do you know if it's maybe too much or I'm no okay well for me I um I tend to do more than less as you can see here I mean you could easily make a bouquet 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 okay how many to a happier 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 finished the book and that's to silence the little balls s o I've got twelve here on that's my regular number for this for the type of flowers and foliage I will choose thank you um yeah if I may ask do you ever are you ever concerned with garden cut flowers of wilting because you know certain pussy in the summertime and yeah that's why you don't see with syria in here because like I would love to use mysterious for a bouquet 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, which I will use in our centerpiece tomorrow that looks lovely on it, doesn't wilt so you just have to kind of know your garden flowers and, yeah, I'll use mysterio for for a arrangement that's going to be in flower in water, but that's, the problem with the garden cut sometimes, and actually we're talking about flowers 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 y brand new flowers, but two to three days before the wedding and and that's a great question because you really want your flowers and full bloom on at their maximum beauty, and that only happens when they're in full bloom. So I, for example, 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 goingto 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 to look their best on bloom, so full bloom now we have a few our preparation questions tio not you mentioned before about having glows 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 and 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 on dh 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 um a floral tape is important when you're making um okay, although timmy this is the most important twine because how I do it most people most florist might use this to wrap up their entire bouquet but I just used 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 they're fifteen dollars and they have worked so well for me I don't do such a good job of keeping them clean um if you want it to last long make sure you keep them clean after you're using them um each time and wiped them clean and then yeah, I mean, it doesn't cost that much at all and then s o 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 fridge and my garage which is the coolest part of the home and it's really important to once you mean your flowers home on your unwrapping them from the mart and 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 in their beauties last thing so and so and actually the veena excuse me veena de v design think I got that one? Are you going to actually be covering any hardening of the flowers or do you just let them than 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 cut them in an angle and make sure that they get enough water and that's all you need to do to prepare okay? God show yes and those flowers didn't have any thorns on the roses that's because we we've prepared these ahead of time but I we went ahead and used a d thorner patricia I don'thave here right now but it's something that you could just pull the thorns with like this off of the stems and that makes life very much easier because you don't poke 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 de 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 guys placing them straight into a bucket? Is there some sort of way that you wrapped them when you're storing them no rapping just inside buckets okay, we're just regular tap water viggo tap water make sure your buckets aren't too dirty you know you haven't had some flowers that kind of rotted in there and you just kind of rinse your buckets and that's really something forrest you was just a little bit of um 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 t was like bacteria yes, how 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 yeah right because this is your your experience yeah that's right dor students have any questions about prep you know this is definitely a good time to ask about prep questions now they're just ready teo rachel 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'd 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 oh but the fans a great idea to unfortunately we live in a climate working at that war so flowers ten the last longer but I have moved in air conditioner into my studio before when it was young and sometimes I've 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 have it 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 worked with a lot of clients how how does that work in the process of communication when you are inspired or you go to the mart or the garden and something gets your juices going, how do you work with that 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 I've 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 there, 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 if you could share so 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 time it's been oh yeah that would be lovely or I'm not sure about it so but I've never come across any problems made because I've been lucky I don't know or because you communicate really well dio 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 apples sometimes they can cause the bananas to right then or 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 the personal offense for me because I want to see everything in its 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 milky. Uh, I don't know what you call that, but there is this. Yeah, sap and I don't want that getting mixed with some other flour in there. And it's, just better to keep me on the risk free and keep him separate. Wonderful about 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 client tell how you got your first client was a word of mouth. It just started to spread its my blawg I about a year ago I started doing a blogged of mainly di wise every other day. I mean, of course, for me, it was an amazing thing because I would go to the mart and I said, 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 pretty popular way for me to, um, expose myself. And it is through this block 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 blimey I'm half of my blood r d I y eyes do I post so you could definitely check that out to lupino dot com for more inspiration yeah it's amazing what you do with the internet these days way do you 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 men did you want to know? How many flowers do you buy for a normal wedding? We know you got twelve different flavors. 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 bouquets the number of ah um bridesmaids and all of that for example if you know if I have a party of five you know bridesmaids and ah bridal bouquet that six bouquets I have to make and so with these I have gotten which today we have about six or five bouquets so we bought about seven bunches of these we got about four bunches of the roses I got five bunches of peonies four bunches of a still be 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 centerpieces? Well that again depends on how many tables you have and uh whether it's ten tables or four tables it's just depends we got 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 ever been one that really stood out 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 mojica castle um we had to go and rent a a big truck that was refrigerated so you know we've we've we landed in new jersey we've 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 g get over on dh then it was me working inside a refrigerated truck for two days straight well once the flowers got there it was actually um 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 and then I told myself if you can do this, you can do anything when it comes to weddings you can't do any good advice for sure that stretched you maybe maybe even farther than you knew and I guess that it's all about stretching here you know, stretching your creative ability and just seeing what you khun dio I agree on speaking of seeing what what you can do our students have been working hard to present their flowers. What do you think of their work, tio want to check in on them and sure sure how they got you in here. I think you've done amazing um maybe give them some pointers. Yeah, if there's something like there was some more, you know, over here and we can close it a little bit more because we want needed this long in the okay, uh, this looks good. You can quite easily love it more to then getting getting your way when you're trying to build too long. Yeah, look look fairly long these two, maybe we can come he's a little bit more to go through some of these guys that are dying. This is great to have someone critique your work on the spot you know, you don't have to worry about if you did it right, we've got an expert here to help 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 made it easy for all of us can thank you for having me yeah I'm curious to know from the students here do you each have sort of a a kit of tools and a workstation for you to arrange flowers at home do you already have a setup and you're in your current location you know dio 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 a good thing you're here what do you use wire for oh for though is like if I wanted that to stand up and say hey and you know what where you came in from eva she said you recommend wiring flowers and bouquets and are there certain types of flowers that increase the stability um because of my style which is that free flowing natural kind of wilder style I don't wire any flowers with the exception of succulents because they don't have any stems and so I have to make a stem 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 free flowing way now I know one thing that you didn't mention in your kit was having floral food and rene wanted to know do you use floral food toe 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 it 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 the market, you don't need anything there 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 the flour food is sort of a way to augment your process but really it's about acting quickly have a bucket ready as soon as you cut it and put it in yeah clean bucket of water exactly and like hannah said, what does that cut again to make it just cut it in an angle so that it could drink easily and then right in the water? Yeah, okay, beautiful anything else? Yeah, we just want to know all about prep and yeah, tips that you have about prep because I mean this before we start building yeah, we want to build the foundation of the house well eso basically I 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's a good setup for me it's way better than it is in my studio because of my studios 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 mylene and I absolutely love them they are so beautiful I mean 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 teo separate but they look really amazing inside bouquets for that texture that I was earlier talking about I have a question so I'm while we're on flowers yes I'm some designers come the philosophy of pulling out battles I don't like that I leave mine yeah aye unless it looks really brown and wilted I won't touch it because it's a part of the flower I'm way at that organic look on I looked at these earlier and they look fine to me so I'm not going to touch them but if you have like sometimes I don't know juliet's garden roses they get really brown on the side I'll pick and pick one or two um but otherwise no I don't do that. Where did you get your initial inspiration from did you start building pinterest boards? Did you look at magazine? No, my biggest inspiration is ari alicia's are she is a garden style um floral designer she I believe that she's one of the first florists who ah really kind of started this this revolution of using fruits and branches and anything you can find in the garden for your floral designs and she's the one that I really look up tio and um uh admire so that's who my inspiration really has four design goes now with the 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 a bouquet you know I have to just kind of stop what I'm doing and pickle leave off of my stem or you know it just it helps me do the 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 its worth the investment that time 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 flower market but for someone that maybe is an hour or so away from the market do you recommend that they bring buckets with then when I pick up the reason I bring buckets when I know for certain flowers because like for example hello bora they are just they die so quickly and those were one of the flowers that you just cannot keep out of it you know out of the out of water so I always have some buckets or I just those ask ask those guys given 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 if the waste of your money on your time okay you get home and it's all wilted I've found since I've 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 and prepared 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 is as these things that you can do to enhance the process and make it easier for yourself and I don't know about chiana but if I was doing all this time prep I gotta have my playlist there oh yeah you better believe I do have music music is the first thing that goes on the minute I hear is 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 and that's the way to do it I mean this is the office that you've created for yourself yes how 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 they play a part that was putting them to work with poor 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 a 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 were 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 a garden that we maintain so he's very much into that and he he'll go to his school and garden and he brought home two bags of lettuce and things from his school garden for us because he was so interested and the other ones too you know in their own way 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 wei 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 in the dining room everywhere now how would you suggest a workspace if someone is just starting from scratch? They're like an ideal work space in your head well for me 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 and it's 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 so I guess just you have to see what works for you what is it that you you know what is your environment do 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 buckets because I know I did a wedding once and really an hour into it my back was so sore and how'm I gonna get through the days so don't even go over that that's something that I mean I suffer from chronic back pain on guy 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, um, I 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, uh, take my dog for a walk or yeah, great. Now, chiana, we've 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 we will be 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 great. Yeah, I think that we're gonna have a smooth transition into our bouquets.