Rittners School Of Floral Design
In Boston Presents....

How To Make A Pleasant & Showy Vase Arrangement

Once in a while you find a need for a vase arrangement. It could be for a special occasion such as a birthday. It could be because you are visiting someone's new home.....It could be that special anniversary or dinner party with a significant other....It could be something to make your own living room look nice with company coming in..........The bottom line is that it could be just about anything content-wise....The major criteria is that it be a nice, pleasant, appealing floral design.........

This design is meant to fulfill such a need. It is large. It is showy. It is pleasant. It is the kind of design that could be used for just about any occasion or event.......

Best of all, it's really easy to stylize..........

And as we construct this arrangement, it also provides us with many things that we can learn about the nature of floral designing in general...............

What You Will Need

We have taken several inexpensive utility containers and glued them together to create an interesting base. The round container is slightly angled, and inserted inside a rectangular base...The overall result is that the round container is tipped slightly at an angle towards our viewing plane.....

Large leaves are used to establish the overall shape and form of this arrangement...

You can use either Ti leaves or Aspidistra leaves, depending upon the availabililty in your market.....The advantage of adding these leaves first is that not only do we create the overall shape of this design, but in addition, we are also covering our mechanics on the backside of the unit, even before a single flower is added.

Next let's start creating greater height though our spike flowers....Notice that the placement of the spikey flowers are even higher than the leaves....This really extends the overall size of the arrangement, and makes it even more imposing

We are being deliberately vague about the kind of spike flower, (as we were about the large leaves), to allow you more freedom in your own selection process.....Possible candidates could include, of course, snapdragon, liatris, larkspur, and delphinium.......

A little sheet moss is used to cover the mechanics in the front section of the design.

More of our spike flowers are placed along the left side of the arrangement. The spike materials gradually are cut shorter in size and placed as shown in the photograph.....

A single chrysanthemum is placed into the front section of the design.

If we wanted, we could stop the design at this point in time....It would admittedly be a bit sparse, but as a contemporary piece, it would be acceptable......

Something stylized as shown in this photo would be a good way to create a silk or permanent arrangement, relatively inexpensively, because the content is not very great.........

But let's take this design several steps further, so that you can see how we can add even greater value to the piece......

Let's add a second chyrsanthemum to the design, placing it a little higher than the first......Again we could stop at that point..........

But we won't.... :->

Take sweet william and fill in the front section of the arrangement. Add a few pieces of sweet william, interspersing it with the spike flower.......

This is a really cool trick.....Notice that the sweet william is a red to red violet color....It works quite well because it is a bit darker than the chrysanthemums and base, yet is not as dark as the spike materials.......At the same time the contrast between the spike materials and the sweet william on the left side of the design, creates great visual interest.............

Notice that all of the flowers in this arrangement are framed by the leaves coming out on either side.....

Again, we could stop at this point in the development of this arrangement and call it completed.....In this case, there is more value in the arrangement, than in the earlier stopping point....

And it is a lovely contemporary arrangement...........

But no........We'll take this arrangement but one final step forward.......

A few stems of alstroemeria are added in this last step on the bottom left side and on the bottom right side of the arrangement..............

It is curious, that in the addition of more material there is a trade off.... The design definitely exhibits more weight on the base section, and psychologically imparts the feeling of more value...........

On the other hand, it feels more traditional in this ending point then it would if left as it was in the last step.......

Here........Let's look at the last two steps side by side.............

The design on the left has less material on the base line........feels more contemporary with the leaves becoming structurally important........

The design on the right has more material on the base line........feels more traditional with the leaves becoming less obvious.........

A final thought......these comments about more or less contemporary are by no means value judgements......Many folks equate the term "contemporary" with modern and desireable, and "traditional" as being old fashioned and not as desireable...That is 100% incorrect........

Technically, contemporary is anything being made at the present time...and that includes many classical forms, shapes, and approaches.........So one could argue that both routes are "contemporary."

When I differentiate here between the two terms, what I am doing is pointing out stylistic and structural differences, but nothing more.........In my eyes both are equally valid, depending upon the likes of the ultimate recipient, and the space into which these designs may be placed....and their function....

Enough of the philosophical insights.......Let me get off my soap box. :->

It is my hope that you really enjoy making this arrangement, and get as much satisfaction from it, as we have in presenting it to you today!!

We hope that you really enjoyed this brief floral design lesson. At Rittners Floral School in Boston we provide floral design instruction that includes a wide range of different styles and techniques. Please come and take one of our hands-on workshop programs!!