How to Make Floral Arrangements For Your Home & Special Events
Ready to learn how to arrange flowers beautifully? This video will show you step-by-step how to make gorgeous floral designs. Whether you're hosting a dinner, prepping for a wedding, or making a gift, you'll learn to style stunning centerpieces for any event.
How to make floral arrangements
Floral foam
Before we get started on our floral arrangements, I've got two tips I want to talk to you about. The first one is the foam that you're going to use to place your flowers in. When you go to the craft store, foam is all in the same aisle, and it's really easy to pick up the wrong foam.
You want to get the foam that says wet foam, not because it looks so similar to this one, but because this one is for silk flowers.
It will not hold water. So, get the one that's the wet foam you can use to arrange your flowers in a clear base.
Base
I chose this white porcelain base I got at the craft store for 12 bucks.
The reason I chose this one is because it's a low base. When you make a flower arrangement, especially for a dinner party, you don't want that arrangement to be too high because guests can't see each other. I invested in this one that I can reuse over and over.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to place my wet foam in there, but I'm going to cut it so that when I put it in here, I'm going to shove it in tight. Then, I'm going to begin to make my flower arrangement.
When to buy flowers
When I'm going to make an arrangement, I will buy my flowers the day before I need to make my arrangement, and the reason is that a lot of times your flowers aren't open all the way, so if they soak in water overnight, they'll open up a little more.
Snip
What I want you to do is when you first get your flowers, I want you to snip off the ends of the flowers and then put them in the water. That way, they can soak up the water overnight and look great the next day when you're ready to start your flower arrangement.
Add water
Now you're ready, so you need to add water.
Before you add your flowers, your flowers come with this little flower food packet. Go ahead and add it to the water. I've done it already and stirred it up, and then you'll pour that in. It is amazing how this wet foam just soaks up the water.
Choose flowers in threes
My rule of thumb when making a flower arrangement is to choose flowers in threes. By that, I mean I choose a large, medium, and small flower. Often, the small flowers are fillers, which is the eucalyptus, or in this case, I picked some things out of the yard. I have Nandina and some Hydrangea, and we will also use those as fillers.
Start with the largest
So, we're going to start with the largest flower.
The largest flower I chose is the red flower. They're going to be these red-tipped roses. When you get your roses, take all the leaves off. You don't want leaves touching water, especially if you're doing a clear vase. If you have leaves floating in the water, it will turn the water green, so go ahead and trim your rose.
Tip: You want to trim it at an angle so it soaks up the water. I trim all my flowers first and then put them in a vase to keep them fresh.
Center flower
I'm going to move on to my center flower, which will determine the height of the rest of your arrangement.
I don't want it too high because I want guests to be able to see around it. There we go, how pretty is that?
Now you're ready to add the white flowers.
Sometimes, you'll get a bad leaf when you get roses. Then all I do is take scissors, and I just kinda cut it, pull it down, and snip it, and then you don't see it. Now, my white roses are going to be a little lower than the red ones because I want my red flowers to be dominant. I'm going to place them in between each red one.
Second-size flower
Now I'm ready for my second-size flower.
This flower is called Alstroemeria, one of my favorite flowers, and I'll tell you why. They last longer than any other flower, and they're relatively inexpensive. If I'm going to take a flower arrangement to someone in the hospital or take it to someone's home, I will often just make a huge arrangement of this flower because it will last forever.
Now, when you first get one, they have a ton of leaves. I just take my hand and pull it down. So this is going to be my medium-sized flower, and it's going to start to be a filler here.
You may be wondering why this is pretty much red and white. I am making this arrangement for my father's 90th birthday party, and he's a World War II vet.
Filler flowers
I don't know why, but adding the last smaller fillers is just my favorite part.
There are several types of eucalyptus. I love this one. It's airy and light. I like baby's breath, but I don't always use it in my flower arrangements because I just like to have something a little bit different. So, I stick this in more of the edges because I would like the eucalyptus to flow out.
I will start to create a little bit of a softer feel in my arrangement. I've got all the eucalyptus in, and not only is this starting to look gorgeous, but it smells divine. Now, I'm going to add the little Nandina sprigs that I cut. I'll finish this by adding all the Nandina and just a few little hydrangeas that haven't started to bloom yet.
Finally, I'm going to put a flag in the middle and a little happy birthday sign for my dad.
How to create fresh flower arrangements
I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and it helped you get ideas for your flower arrangements. Do you create fresh flower arrangements? Share your projects in the comments below.
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