How to Make a Professional Looking Floral Arrangement at Home

It isn’t a secret that all of us are spending more time at home these days. If you’re passionate about your home’s interior design and decor, all of the time spent inside your four walls may have you wondering what you can do to spruce the place up. We’re here to tell you that not only are flowers a great way to bring bright tones of joy into your home, but buying bulk flowers and tackling a DIY arrangement right from your kitchen (as many of our customers have demonstrated on their Instagram accounts) can also be a great way to cure those pandemic blues. Here at Fabulous Florals, we have great industry relationships with a number of leading floral designers. We caught up with them to get their pro tips on DIY arrangements.

Where to begin?

 

FabulousFlorals.com, of course! You will need to start your DIY floral adventure by scouring our website for your favorite finds within a budget that works for you. This time of year, peonies, ranunculus, and garden roses are always flying out of the cooler.

Tips from the pros:

 

We caught up with our friend Alicia Schwede, floral designer and industry blogger for some DIY tips. After all, Alicia is the founder of the leading floral design industry blog and magazine, Flirty Fleurs. She regularly lectures on design and social media at workshops and events around the country. She is also the creative mind behind Seattle-area floral design studio Bella Fiori. Her work has been featured in Better Homes and Gardens, Rocky Mountain Bride, Luxe Mountain Weddings, The Knot, and Style me Pretty.

 

As Alicia says, “When the flowers first arrive, keep in mind that they’ve been traveling and will be dehydrated. Quickly get them unwrapped, clean off any foliage on the stems, cut the flowers (preferably using floral scissors) at a 45 degree angle and place them in clean water. You will want to let them rest for a bit and get rehydrated. Some flowers like roses may even need up to 24 hours to fully rehydrate. Once you have noticed they are better hydrated, then it is time to start arranging!”

 

As we noted in our recent blog, bacteria is a big issue when it comes to flowers. Alicia expands on this, noting “An important element to a long lasting flower arrangement is arranging the flowers into clean vessels of water. Bacteria can grow quickly and it will shorten the life of your flowers. Keeping foliage or leaves out of the water will help lessen the growth, but you will also want to change the water every day or every other day to ensure that your flowers last as long as possible.”

 

Now that you have learned more about unpacking, hydrating, and keeping your flowers nice and clean, let’s dig into arranging them. Alicia says that “Mastering mechanics helps immensely when creating a flower arrangement…you need to create an underlying structure that will support the arrangement and make the process much easier.” She goes on to say, “For low sided vessels like compotes and bowl arrangements, I would suggest using chicken wire shaped into a ball and taped into place with waterproof tape. This is one of my favorite mechanics to create a loose, garden style design.” With all of Alicia’s great tips, there are just a few more things you won’t want to forget before you start DIY designing your floral arrangement at home.

Don’t forget the greens!

 

We all think of flowers when it comes to buying in bulk, but what about some greenery to help compliment them in a beautiful vase? Greens like eucalyptus will make a lovely, and fragrant accessory for your arrangement.

Vases…so many to choose from:

 

As Alicia said, there are various mechanical methods you can use for low sided vessels like compotes and bowls. Mason jars are also a very popular, inexpensive, and low maintenance way to get some mini bouquets together and decorate the entire house. However, you will have to cut your stems pretty short, and sometimes arrangements look best big and bold! While you can find a vase pretty much anywhere these days (HomeGoods, Target, etc.) we are all about shopping small and trying to support local as best you can. That said, please first check out some of your favorite local shops for vase options. Many of them are delivering items to their customers’ homes themselves, or offering private shopping appointments or curbside pick up when you call ahead. For vase inspo, we have found that Etu Home has some great options like this one.

There’s always YouTube:

 

Fan and friend of Fabulous Florals, and California florist Christine Welch has a fantastic library of instructional videos on floral design on her YouTube channel. We highly recommend checking her channel out. You can even see her use our very own flowers for many of her arrangements.

 

So, there you have it, all of our tips and pro tips on how to make a professional looking, DIY floral arrangement right from your own home! Happy designing, and please be sure to tag us on Instagram or Facebook so we can feature your creations for our followers. Don’t forget to give Alicia a follow over at Flirty Fleurs so you can take note of all of her beautiful creations, as well.