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Tricia Legg
is the webmaster for floralartmall.com, editor of floral design magazine and a keen floral artist. As her home is
also the headquarters of Floralartmall.com her designs are throughout
the main reception areas and dinner guests usually expect a floral
design on the table
This
design is a quick arrangement for the table to be enjoyed by friends
and family, and is a great way to practise your design principles and
elements.
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A BEGINNER'S LESSON. The design featured below is a
table setting, for an informal family gathering and Tricia guides you through
the thought processes she used for the design and that you need to use for your arrangements. For a lesson for beginners each month delivered through the post or by email, subscribe to floral design magazine here
The
dining room table is not huge and we were planning a large smorgasbord
type meal, so I really wanted the arrangements to sit either side of the
large meat dish during the meal, so as to not take up too much room, and
then come together as one, after the meat plate had been cleared
away. I also wanted a little design on each placemat, which could be added
to the main piece, after the table was cleared.
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My Mum wanted to help,
so we made one arrangement each, one mirroring the other, for each side of
the meat dish, but neither being exactly the same so Mum could have fun with
the plant material too. We hoped the colour choices from the garden
would give the necessary unity.
This beginners design is a lesson on how to make it up as you go along!
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The
first thing was to decide on a colour scheme, so into the garden we went, to see what
was in flower, armed with a bucket full of water, secateurs and design principles.
Pinks and purples seemed to dominant the available plant material, with
pink alstroemerias and blue hydrangeas in flower, and foliage of red nandina and purple helicumleaves.
I
then had to think about contrast and picked some shiny ivy leaves, to contrast
with the dull helicum, and the tizzy nandina.
Looking at the selection in
the bucket I could see I needed some big round forms, and spied the lemon
tree. Cut in wedges, these would pick up the colour in the centre of the
alstroemerias and give me the bold form I needed to contrast with all the
small, fussy material picked so far.
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This was one of the first lessons I learnt in flower arranging.Be disciplined
in your plant material selection and know why you are selecting each piece.
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The next decision was the
container for the designs. I decided on a small block of wet
floral foam, one each for my Mum and myself, wrapped in cellophane around
the base and held with a rubber band. I wanted the foam hard up against the
meat dish on both sides to take up less room and on the same level
as the dish, not hanging over into the food, and the cellophane
stops wet patches across the table. This is also a great way to prepare
foam when you are giving an arrangement away as a gift or when you may not
get your container back after a function.
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Taking
one small square piece of foam each we first added the ivy leaves to cover
the foam at the base, placing them downwards like a skirt. Above went the
helicum leaves for contrast and then the hydrangea heads so the foam
was completely covered from all angles.The side that was going to be closest
to the meat dish was much flatter than the out-facing side.
Now we needed height but not too much as the guests needed to
be able to look over the design out to the stunning harbour view on the other
side of the table. For this we added the alstroemeria and nandina.
Finally
the slices of lemon were pushed onto toothpicks and inserted in pairs.
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As you can see above, each design looks a little odd on its own, but
either side of the dish they looked excellent (above) If you look again at
the design photographed at the top of the page, you will see them placed
together and you can actually see that both sides are different, but as we
both used the same plant material, unity was achieved.
The designs had only taken 15 minutes, had given us a lot of pleasure using
our own garden plants, and all that was left were the individual placings.(and cooking the meal!)
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This
is where Mum thought I had completely lost it! She had never seen a
cut lemon used before as a source of liquid for flowers and watched to see
if the alstroemeria would last. It did, for about a week! Try out the idea
with any fruit, such as tomatoes, tamarillos, oranges, the ideas are endless
for these edible vases!
As you can see, the place settings were the end cut from the lemon, with
a sprig on Nandina and Alstroemeria pushed into the juicy parts of the cut,
and that was it. I did have to trim one or two of the bottoms to make them
sit flat.
After the meal these were added in a grouping around the base of the main
arrangement to bring the form and colour of the lemon slices down into
the base of the design, and to present a different face on the same form.(again, you will see them in the top photo)
Best of all I now also had a bonus with a table centrepiece that lasted a
week!
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For more beginners designs within floralartmall.com click here
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