Today we're excited to share an easy, step-by-step arrangement done in partnership with the marvelous floral designer Jen Cavender from Nectar + Bloom. Jen is a poet, founder, and creative director of Nectar + Bloom, a boutique floral design studio based in San Diego, California. Jen's passion for the inspiring, empowering, and transformative nature of flowers shines through each arrangement, crafting visual stories through the language of flowers.
We adore Jen's creations, and with her help, we hope you will follow along to create an arrangement that will have you falling in love each time you see it!
Step One: Your Florals
The first and most crucial step in any arrangement is choosing the different types of artificial flowers. Generally, these florals consist of structural stems, focal flowers, secondary flowers, filler flowers, and the greenery you want.
• Structure - Structural stems, for the most part, can be foliage from woody plants or a floral with a leafy framework for all other blooms.
• Focal Flowers – These flowers will be the showstopper of your arrangements. These flowers should be the ones that immediately draw your eye and the eye of anyone looking at your arrangement. Focals can be large, blowsy blooms like Dahlias, Peonies, roses, or chrysanthemums.
• Secondary and Filler Flowers – Essential to bulking out your display, you'll want a floral to fill the space between the larger blooms to knit everything together. You can choose florals with smaller buds and flowers or branching heads.
• Greenery – Greenery can be beautiful leaves such as sprigs of eucalyptus, asparagus plumosus ferns, grasses, Italian Ruscus leaves, cacti, olive brands, and even succulents. Choose a color palette of complimenting or contrasting colors, or make it easy by choosing florals of all the same shade.
To recreate Jen's recipe try using white artificial flowers, hints of yellow artificial flowers, and soft green artificial eucalyptus.
Step Two: Tools
To help you create the arrangement, you'll need a few floral supplies to help! First, of course, is our gorgeous Afloral Grey Compote and Candle Bundle for a stunning centerpiece base.
• Chicken Wire Ball, Floral cage, Floral Chicken Wire, Round Flower Hairpin Flower Frog, Agra-Wool, or Angel Vine for a foam-free base
• Floral Heavy-Duty wire cutters
• Hand protection (Optional)
• Floral tape for securing your base and top
• Grey compote bowl
• Chosen Florals and greenery
You'll want heavy-duty floral wire cutters for two reasons: first, you'll need something to trim your stems if you find them too long or want to create different heights by cutting them. Second, if you decide to use Floral chicken wire instead of a cage, flower frog, or Agra-wool and angel vine, you'll most likely want to cut the wire to fit your compote bowl, and if so, you'll wish to use protective hand gear during the cutting and shaping of the wire.
Create your Base
Whether you use a Floral Frog or Chicken Wire, you will want a sturdy base to hold your stems and arrangement before you begin placement. If you chose a Flower Frog, you could use floral tack tape to keep the frog in place. If you're using chicken wire from a roll, here is how you can shape it:
1. Place your compote bowl on the chicken wire.
2. Ensure the width of the wire is slightly larger than the width of the compote bowl's opening.
3. Measure the height of your compote bowl as that will be the length of the wire you need to cut to be the height of the bowl times 2.
4. With the above measurements, begin to cut chicken wire to size. Make sure to protect your hands to avoid injuries.
5. Next, take your cut wire and gently roll two edges downward to create a ball-like shape, or a shape resembling that of your compote bowl, and gently push it to the bottom so that your stems can go through both layers of mesh.
6. Place the floral tape in a cross at the top of the bowl and mesh.
Step 4: Start Arranging
1. Designer Jen from Nectar + Bloom chose to implement our Green Grey Artificial Spiral Eucalyptus as the structural stems for her composition. For your design, you may use a greenery item that speaks to you for structural branches to follow along with Jen's video, or you may use a large, leafy floral.
2. After you've arranged your greenery or structural stems, experiment with filler flowers to create a fuller, livelier-looking base. For interest, you may wish to play with length, having some florals be different heights for a more natural look.
3. Once you're pleased with the structural stems and filler flowers, it's time to experiment with bulking up your arrangement with your secondary filler flowers. Like your filler flowers, play with different heights to help fill out any spaces and create a draw for the eye upward to where your focus florals will be.
4. It's time for your focal flowers to shine! Whichever bloom you've picked, place one or two between your secondary filler stems, reserving the middle or highest point for most of them. It's all about what feels and looks right to you, so don't be afraid to take a focal flower out and place it somewhere else until it speaks to you.
5. Step back and enjoy the gorgeous centerpiece you just made!
We want to thank Jen from Nectar + Bloom for helping us inspire and create a unique, beautiful compote arrangement, and we'd like to thank you for following along with us! Did you make this centerpiece? We would love to see it! Please tag us on social media to share your creations with us! Are you looking for more inspiration and arrangements? Please follow our blog and socials to get our latest looks, floral tips, and tricks and capture a spark of arrangement inspiration!"
