Arranging Flowers as a Beginner
The slow, early stages of a new hobby.
On July 13, 2024, I found a gorgeous flower painting at my favorite antique shop. I loved the contrast of light and dark and the wistful way I felt when I looked at it. I wanted an arrangement of flowers like that on my table!
I’d never been very interested in flowers before this painting but seeing this on a daily basis for a month before I finally decided where to put it gave me a desire to recreate the arrangement in real life.
I was fine with waiting until I found the right vase and that happened at the beginning of September, and surprisingly (or not), it was in the same antique shop.
Close to the antique shop is a small flower shop so I dropped in and showed the owner a photo of the painting to see if she had flowers that were similar. She didn’t have any in the shop at that time but she thought that she could order some in that were very close. So, I went ahead and ordered them and a few days later, I was able to pick them up.
I decided to put the picture in our foyer. My daughter had recently decided that she no longer wanted a grey nightstand so I put that under the picture and added a few books to put the vase on top of.
Once the flowers came in, they ended up being a pretty perfect match and once they were in the vase, I concluded that I had probably come as close to recreating the painting as possible.
I added a few more roses than the actual picture and a little greenery to fill it out and make it sit snugly in the vase.
The table sits right next to the coat closet and eventually got moved for fear that Odin would knock the vase over, but I can’t put into words properly the amount of joy I felt whenever I saw these flowers over the next few weeks.
Multiple trips were made simply to stop and smell the roses. And these smelled amazing!
Once they had died, I decided that I wanted to have fresh flowers in the house on a regular basis. The majority of the walls in our house are white and we’ve added pops of color with art and I thought we could add more with some flower arrangements.
Every few weeks, during our weekly grocery run at Trader Joe’s (which my husband typically does), I’ll request that he pick up some flowers that I can arrange and I love seeing what he chooses to pick up.
Here are a few of my favorite arrangements over the past (almost) year:
In the beginning, I stuck mainly to roses. I tried to focus on learning how to cut them to get the best heights for the arrangements and how to care for them - new water every few days and if they start to flop, trim the ends again.
Eventually, I moved onto pre-made bouquets that I would then cut and arrange until I found something that I liked. This is one of my favorite ones that I’ve ever done! Unfortunately, the hydrangea didn’t last as long as the other flowers, but eventually the tiger lilies started to open up and they smelled so amazing.
Sometimes the arrangements are super simple, like the time my husband brought home some baby carnations and I just plopped them in a vase and put them on the mantle, which has been one of my favorite ways of adding color to this space lately:
I love how this one coordinated with one of the outfits that I wore that same week:
I’ve tried numerous times to pick up different types of flowers to put together my own bouquet but I have always felt overwhelmed at the thought and put them all back. I did the same thing yesterday, but after I took a lap around the store, I tried again:
I’m pretty happy with my first attempt, although I think there is a lot of room for improvement. I picked up 2 types of flowers and some greenery for filler and while I can’t remember the name of them, the white ones smell like allspice to me and the yellow balls are Craspedia.
I feel a little emboldened to try something more colorful and dramatic next time, but perhaps I’ll go on a weekday instead of a Saturday so that it’s calmer around the flower section!
Love it! Be carefull with the lilies, they are very toxis for cats. Maybe you already know. I always cut out the stamps. ❤️
I love fresh flowers in the house. While my husband is gardening he often cuts some flowers from our garden and puts them in a vase on our dining table as a surprise for me. Sometimes it might be a single banksia or protea and other times several kangaroo paws, whatever we have blooming. I get a lot of pleasure out of studying the flower closely as I do dabble in botanic art so, the intricate details are of great interest to me. I really like a chaotic flower arrangement, something that imitates nature. I love your last arrangement, it looks like you have billy buttons in it which are a favourite australian flower of mine.