Bright and Cheery Flower Tutorial | Spokane Florist

This bright and bold bouquet is full of spring treasures as well as some fall treasures that were preserved (aka dried) last year. I stuck with yellows and oranges inspired by the two tones in those lovely double-flowered daffodils.

My original ingredient list included primroses but when I placed them where I wanted them in the arrangement, it was overcrowded. A good example of not being afraid to edit out flowers once you step back from your work and take in the whole bouquet. You will also notice I have a non-seasonal ingredient in my line up and you would be correct! These are dried strawflower. That’s right, I said dried. And no this isn’t a time warp back to your mother’s 1985 craft room. Dried flowers (or everlastings to make them sound more appealing) can be a fantastic addition when used in a modern application. I particularly like mixing them in with fresh flowers.

Oregon grape can be a beastly ingredient to use. They are basically noxious weeds around here and no matter how many times I hack back the plants, they grow right back. So, I figure I may as well use them when I can. I put the leaves in Christmas wreaths and the blooms and berries in arrangements. In this application, I stripped off all of the needle-pointed leaves and left just the bright yellow bloom clusters.

The tulips in my arrangement were “reflexed” meaning that I took plain old, single-flowered tulips and gently pressed on the middle-backs of each petal to make it pop into an outward facing position.

Step One. After filling your chosen vessel (notice I picked a contrasting turquoise to complement my orange and yellow flowers) with cold water and a wad of chicken wire for support, I added in my base structure. In this case, I used bridal crown spirea. I especially love using this shrub when it’s coated in tiny white blooms but that’s still a couple weeks away. Right now, it’s tiny chartreuse leaves and it’s cascading habit were exactly what I needed for the foundation of this arrangement.

Step Two. I added in Oregon grape and service berry branches, aka saskatoon bush, to enhance the overall feel of “abundant spring blooms” we’re going for here. Service berry grows wild all over the woods here in Spokane, they are a bit weedy looking during the hot summer months but are delicate and beautiful under the canopy of ponderosa pine in the springtime. If you don’t have any on your property, go foraging! Just do so responsibly, which by the way, is something I don’t feel like I need to elaborate on for an audience of adults.

Step Three. Pack in those lovely spring blooming bulbs! I added daffodils up higher purely because I had the longest stem length on them, ranunculus behaved like a bit of a “color-filler” because they are such a dense bloom and tulips were added last so that their petals had a bit of room to stretch. Remember to give each flower a little bit of breathing room so that it has space to move and doesn’t come across as stiff. Avoiding the “over packed” look is exactly why the primroses came out in the next step. Oh and don’t mind the slightly out of focus image, I had a baby rolling around distracting me. You can actually see his little foot on the bottom left if you look close, haha!

Step Four. The finishing touch was to tuck in some dried stems of strawflower for an added pop of color. They worked great as a way to bridge the yellow and orange color palette because they are multi-toned if you really analyze them. Another thing I like about using everlastings, is that they don’t need to be pushed down into the water and can be used again once all the fresh flowers have lived their life.

And voila! Here she is in her place of honor on my dining room buffet. I like color in case you couldn’t tell, haha! It looks like it was made to go there with all the bold yellows and blues…almost like I planned it *winkwink*. Oh and the painting that you can just see a bit of is one of my very talented cousins creations. You can find her work here: https://www.darcyleeart.com/

Also, don’t forget to get your Mother’s Day pre-orders in! Hit the contact me button to order. And check out my last blog post https://frivolityflowers.com/blog/mothersdayflowers-spokaneflorist for the details. This arrangement is an example of the “Citrus Sensation” color palette that will be available for ordering.