Posts Tagged ‘flower arrangements’

Create Instant Art with Decorative Floral Frogs

Monday, September 19th, 2011

Flower frogs are simple structures, traditionally made of glass, metal or ceramic materials, to support single flower arrangements. If you are quick to envision the common craft fair find– a spiky metal platform surrounded by earth-toned ceramic– we have something more stylish in mind for you. Before we discovered Roost’s Flower Frogs and Glass Vases, we thought frogs were tacky, with no place in the modern home. But the Roost Flower Frogs actually feature the metal architectural supports and geometric shapes that are often found in modern designs. Regardless of your style, floral frogs make arranging flowers fun and simple. Anyone can use one!

Flowers to Use for a Frog Arrangement

You can use any kind of cut flowers you like for a floral frog arrangement. You may also want to gather some greens, depending on what you want the overall look to be. Some great autumn flowers that we like are:

  • cleome
  • gerbera daisies
  • chrysanthemums
  • black eyed Susans
  • sunflowers
    		•
  • zinnias
  • asters
  • queen Anne’s lace
  • asters
  • ornamental grasses
    		•

    What tools do I need to arrange flowers in a frog?

    You will need your frog, of course! We would recommend selecting one of the Roost Flower Frog and Glass Vase sets, because this way you will know for sure that the frog will fit your glass vase perfectly. Plus, you can choose from four shapes: large square, medium cylinder, small cylinder, or small square. The only other tool you will need is a pair of sharp shears or a knife to cut the flower stems. It is important that the blade is nice and sharp so that you do not damage or crush the flower stems.

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    Posted in Garden, Home Decor | No Comments »

    Easy Flower Arranging for Outdoor Entertaining

    Thursday, May 27th, 2010

    When you’re throwing an outdoor garden party, create informal flower arrangements that compliment, rather than distract, from the surroundings. If you’re having a seated dinner, or small cocktail tables for guests to sit around, you also want to steer clear of towering (potentially unstable) arrangements. Bud vases provide easy floral design tools, and it’s quick and easy to create a pretty centerpiece.

    We have a variety of bud vases in the aHa! Modern Living catalog, including our Glass Bird Vases, Cube Tube Vases, Jacks Vase, and the Windowsill Herb Holder. Here are a few ideas for each vase, and ideas for mixing these vases with other household containers.

    Glass Bird Vases: These vases look best with delicate flowers and greens. Thin ornamental grass leaves, flax flowers, and other long-stemmed, delicate blooms look good in these birds.

    Cube Tube Vases: You can display larger flowers in these sturdy vases. Their hard-edged lines are calling out for either 1) specimen flowers like a small sunflower on a short stem, a hydrangea, hybrid tea rose, or a large tuberous begonia or 2) wispy, floating ornamental grass stems, sprouting from the tubes in a cascading waterfall of greenery.

    Windowsill Herb Holder: Use this vase to hold your edible centerpiece of garnishes. In each glass cup, place herbs that compliment the taste of your appetizers. Dill, basil and thyme are all different enough, and will highlight most savory dishes. Alternatively, you could place cut stems of mint, lavender, and pineapple sage as garnishes for sweet items and drinks. (See “Grow your own Garnishes,” below, for more garnish ideas.)

    Mix and Match

    The fun of flower arranging with bud vases is that you really can’t make a mistake. Go out to your garden and snip cuttings of anything that catches your eye. You could stick with a color theme (cool colors: blues, purples, greens or warm colors: reds, pinks, oranges, yellows), or a shape (spiky, round, daisy-shaped), or just cut a riot of colors and shapes.

    Cut the flower stems at different lengths (though, none more than three times as tall as the container itself), and start putting them in vases and containers. Bud vases look best when mixed and matched together, along with other glasses, jars, and tumblers from around the house. Part of the fun is the mixing and matching. The space around the vases, once they are arranged in their final place before the party, is also part of the design. Draw attention to the group of vases by placing a large hosta leaf under several of the containers.

    Most importantly, have fun with your arrangements. A grouping of bud vases is a chic and simple table arrangement, fitting for most garden parties.

    Cultivate Your Style

    So what’s your outdoor entertaining style?  Not sure?  For inspiration, check out these images of some of the best outdoor spaces. Notice the placement of flower arrangements and potted plants, and how different arrangements can create or add to the style and atmosphere of an outdoor patio.  We love the way simple additions of clipped or potted flowers, herbs, and succulents on or around outdoor tables can help to create a balanced, complete outdoor space fit for both entertaining and personal enjoyment.

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    Posted in Entertaining, Garden, Home Decor | 3 Comments »

    Anyone Can Arrange Flowers in a Bud Vase

    Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

    From left: Jax Vase, Bird Vases, Cube Tube Vases

    Creating your own floral arrangements can be quite overwhelming at first. So why not start small?  Bud vases let you bring nature into your home in little, easy-to-manage pieces. They fit smaller spaces that a larger vase would overwhelm, or can be used in a grouping to create a centerpiece.

    Look to local farmer’s markets for fresh, cut flowers to create your own budding arrangements throughout your home.  Gardeners, of course, have access to their own plants for flower arrangements.  Restrain yourself from wanting to overfill bud vases with too many flower stems.  In our opinion, a single bold flower, like a Gerbera daisy, makes more of a statement than a stuffy vase full of red roses.

    How to Select a Fresh Cut Flower

    Trust your senses when it comes to selecting flowers at the market.  If the buds or blooms are browning, and the leaves are turning yellow, then keep looking.  You’ll want to avoid flowers sold in stinky water, chance are they are old.

    Buy flowers when they are closed or just partially open. Many flower varieties, such as lilies, have multiple blooms on one stem.  Try to select a single stem with one bloom open and the others closed. That way, you will be able to watch the additional blossoms open and enjoy the flower longer.

    Keep Cut Flowers Alive Longer:

    1. Fill the container with water containing floral food.
    2. Cut the flower stem to about twice the height of the vase. Strip the flower’s stem so that none of the leaves will be covered by water. Place the flower in the bud vase.
    3. To give added support and beauty, add stems of linear bear grass or other linear foliage. Cut the foliage so that they are just slightly taller than the flower.
    4. To give the bud vase an elegant, balanced look, insert greenery at the rim of the bud vase.

    Tabletop Bud Vases

    While large single-vase arrangements are the usual way to go at the dining table, Don Vanderbrook, a floral designer in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, likes to do a grouping of bud vases. “It’s an airier arrangement, and easier for guests to see and talk over,” he said.

    Single Stems that Stand Out:

    • Gerbera daisies
    • Calla lilies
    • Gladioluses
    • Sweet peas
    • Daffodils
    • Tulips
    • Irises
    • Chrysanthemum
    • Roses
    • Spring blooming branches like forsythia

    Keep Scale in Mind

    Make sure the stem of the flower is at least as tall as the vase. Vanderbrook said the rule of thumb is that the flower should be 1½ times the height of the vase. So if the vase is 6 inches tall, the flower should be 9 inches high. Don’t go much taller than that scale, Vanderbrook said, because bud vases tip over more easily than conventional vases.

    Also consider the scale of the space. A single bud vase won’t work on a 60-inch dining room table, Vanderbrook said. A grouping would work, though (see photo above).

    Sources: www.nj.com & www.flowerpossibilities.com

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    Posted in Garden, Grow, Home Decor | 6 Comments »