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NUDE In Bloom x Heritage Gatherings
How to create the perfect arrangement in your home with a step-by-step guide.
As part of our NUDE in Bloom series, we invited floral studio Heritage Gatherings to take inspiration from our Blade collection. Following their modern, whimsical, full of movement, texture and colour designs, take a look below to create the look at home.
To create a chic and timeless arrangement in your home, first gather your blooms. Focus on various colors and textures. Consider using large focal flowers such as roses, dahlias, or tulips.
Add in linear flowers like delphinium, larkspur, or stock. Filler flowers can be smaller blooms used to fill in space, like ranunculus, sweet pea, berries or limonium.
Finally, gather foliages and greenery, such as viburnum, ruscus or whatever you can cut from outside.
Begin by creating a loose “bouquet” in your hands. Gather some of your larger blooms first in one hand, then using the other add in greenery, berries, and taller stems. Don’t use all the flowers, this bouquet will serve as your base structure to hold the rest of your flowers.
After gathering a bouquet in your hand, using about 50% of your flowers, tie the stems with a rubber-band or piece of string.
Cut the stems to the correct height and place in your vase of fresh, clean water. Remember to remove all leaves and petals below the waterline to leave only clean, cut stems- debris will dirty your water quickly.
After placing your tied bouquet in your vase, add the rest of your stems to create the overall shape and style that you want. Your vase should ideally be no more than half the height of your arrangement, so consider adding nice, long stems of florals or branches to double the overall height. This creates visual balance.
Continue adding in your focals, fillers, linears and foliages until the arrangement feels full and balanced all around.
Always keep flowers out of direct sunlight and with fresh clean water to lengthen their shelf life.
Enjoy your beautiful arrangement!
Featured Vase - NUDE Blade Vase in Caramel
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NUDE in Bloom - How to create a Grace & Thorn vase arrangement
For the third and final installation of NUDE in Bloom, the team at Grace & Thorn share their thoughts on how to recreate the signature style of floral arrangement that they've become renowned for in London and beyond. Have a look at our Instagram for more inspiration.
"Here at Grace & Thorn, we pride ourselves on our wild, offbeat approach to flower arranging. We are all about embracing the nature of the materials we use, celebrating every big bloom, every delicate flowers, and all the flowing foliage.
Once you have selected and conditioned your mix of foliage of flowers (see our other articles to learn more about this!), take each piece and observe the shapes, lines, colours and textures individually as you start to build a picture of how they will all come together. Now - for the creative part!"
Step 1.
Use foliage at different angle to create your skeleton, with the tallest bit being the top of your arrangement.
Step 2.
Start adding your focal flowers. Don’t just place these straight down into the jar, place them at an angle and start to create a natural grid on to which all the other flowers and foliage can sit.
Step 3.
Add your filler. You want to layer the filler and all the smaller interesting bits weaving throughout the focal flowers and foliage, again placing the stems in at different heights and angles.
Step 4.
Keep adding and building up your arrangement by grouping flowers.
Step 5.
Step back and make sure you are happy with it all - look at it from difficult angles to see if there are any gaps you might have missed, and pull up any flowers that have gone into hiding.
Step 6.
Add that extra bit of something different - a tall statement stem to cut through the middle, or some sweeping foliage to accentuate one of the sides - this is what will really make your arrangement stand out.
Grace & Thorn for NUDE
NUDE In Bloom
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NUDE In Bloom - Conditioning your flowers
How to condition your flowers for arranging at home
If you have ever attended a flower arranging class, or watched a florist at work, then you may have come across a process called ‘conditioning’. This describes the steps that are taken to ensure your flowers not only look their absolute best, but ensure that they will last as long as possible. Depending on the flower, it will involve different processes, but there are some general steps that you can take for all flowers and foliage you will use.
Let your flowers rest. Once you get them home, place them directly into room temperature water, out of direct sunlight for a few hours. This will help them to recover after their journey back to your home.
Once rested, tidy up your stems. Remove any leaves from the stem that will sit below the water line. This will not only make it easier to arrange your flowers later on, it will also stop any plant matter rotting into the water and causing your flowers to go over prematurely.
Whilst doing this process, you can also break up stems that have multiple branches. This will make your flowers go much further and allow you to create a much more delicate and textured flower arrangement.
Recut the end of your stem. This will refresh the part of the flower that drinks up the water (the xylem if you want the scientific term for it). Cut around 1cm off using a sharp, clean pair of scissors or a knife, and cut at a 45 degree angle to increase the drinking surface area. For woody stems, like hydrangea, you can also cut up into the stem to help them drink up even more. Place into fresh, cool (but not freezing) water and keep out of direct sunlight. We recommend recutting your stems every couple of days once you’ve put your arrangement together.
Keep your water fresh! If you’re not creating your arrangement straight away, be sure to change your water at least once a day, and once you have put it together top up the water regularly, and change it completely if it changes colour or goes cloudy.
Every single stem you buy from a florist will have undergone these processes (and in some case even more!) but it never hurts to go over your stems again.
Grace & Thorn for NUDE
NUDE In Bloom
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NUDE In Bloom - Vessels of inspiration
As part of NUDE in Bloom, we've invited our collaborator and friends, Grace & Thorn, to share their expertise within all things floral. Forming the first of a three-part series, the team discuss the relationship between vase selection and the type of flowers that work well in harmony. Take a look below...
"When buying flowers, it’s always good to have an idea of what vase they will be going in. A vase can not only elevate the beauty of the flowers, they can be a key part of the arrangement itself. To create a harmonious arrangement, it’s important to keep a few things in mind.
One of the key things is height. As a general rule, you want your arrangement to be one-and-a-half times the size of your vase. This will ensure your flowers and vase don’t overpower one another, but also helps keep things steady - too low and it can look unfinished, too high and it could topple over."
"If you have a tall vase, be sure to include at least a few more linear stems. At Grace & Thorn we love to use sweeping tall branches of foliage, or towering stems of delphinium, leucadendron and snapdragons to achieve this. For a more subtle effect, delicate grasses will also draw the eye upwards.
As well as the height of the vase, you will also want to consider the opening. If the neck is too wide you may find it difficult to achieve the desired shape of the arrangement. Too narrow an opening and it could constrain your design or damage the stems. For wider vases, opt for lovely full pieces of foliage to help get an initial filling that will support the rest of your stems. At Grace & Thorn, we love to forage for seasonal greenery which allows us to choose the fullest, leafiest branches. Once you’ve got a good base of greenery in, you can start to add taller stems and blooms to your vase."
"If you have a very small opening, then use your vase as a bud vase. Choose single elegant, architectural pieces. Dried flowers like pampas grass, cotton stems or branches of rosehip work beautifully in a single tall bud vase, or individual big, bolshy blooms will create a high impact for shorter bud vases, especially when grouped together."
"As well as shape, use the colours and textures of your vase for inspiration. If your vase features a key colour, think how your stems might complement or create contrast with your vase. We loved pairing the neutral matte tones with the gorgeous shine of the Layers Gold vase. If your vase features textured glass, think about the refractions and reflections that will be created by the stems placed within it. Subtle details like this are really what will give your arrangements that extra edge and elevate your flower design to the next level."
"The beauty of a bouquet should go beyond the flowers themselves, and thinking about your vase whilst choosing them will help you create a cohesive and eye catching arrangement."
Grace & Thorn for NUDE
NUDE In Bloom
