Flowers are a wonderful thing, aren’t they? I buy a bunch or two every week to add a bit of cheer to the house. I love pottering around with flowers and plants so I recently treated myself to a fantastic little workshop with the lovely people at Rebel Rebel.
I attended the hand tied bouquet workshop and I was thrilled with the results but let me tell you, making a bouquet is much harder than it looks. This is definitely a skill I will have to practice!
When I arrived at Rebel Rebel, I was greeted with smiles, prosecco, nibbles and the most beautiful seasonal flowers. What more could you honestly want out of a Wednesday evening?
We were taught in a small group and we were each given a bucket of beautiful flowers and foliage. We were then carefully guided through the process and expert help was at hand every step of the way. After a couple of hours I went home with a real beauty and a few tips I can share with you.
1. Condition your flowers – this means taking off any leaves that are likely to end up in the water. You don’t want strip the stems completely but basically, leaves submerged in water equal bacteria and bacteria will seriously reduce the lifespan of your bouquet.
2. The stems should be spiralled to create a neat and easy to handle bouquet. By this I mean crisscross the stems and mixup flowers and foliage. Look at your bouquet from different angles and fill in any gaps with additional flowers or foliage.
3. The bouquet doesn’t need to be perfectly round for this kind of bouquet. Simply follow the shape and natural curve of your flowers and foliage for that slightly undone and natural look.
4. Tie tightly with string.
5. Cut the stems diagonally and roughly to the same length so your flowers can drink plenty of water and stand comfortably in your vase.
6. Admire and enjoy your hand tied bouquet!
You will notice that as days go by, some flowers will fade while others still look quite fresh so chuck out the old. Trim the stems of the flowers that are still fresh and arrange into another vase with clean water. This will prolong the life of the remaining flowers and will give your bouquet a whole new look.
By the way this is how amazing the bouquet looked after a week. The peonies changed from a deep coral to a delicate peachy bloom, it was like magic!
I hope you enjoyed this post and let me know if you have any tips to share, I’d love to hear from you.
Antonia x
This post was written with permission from Rebel Rebel