Flower Arrangements for Your Home

Article by Luann Hays

Your home is your most private, personal space. Naturally, you want your home to look at its best. You want it to have a relaxing, inspiring atmosphere that you can't find anywhere else. Such an atmosphere can be achieved by placing flowers in your home. A pretty bunch of flowers can brighten up any room with a spot of colour. Just looking at them can make any person lose the stress acquired during the day! There's something about flowers that cheers people up, so why not take advantage of it by following these helpful tips on decorating your home with flowers?

Using fresh flowers for your dinner table can be a truly inspiring accent. A few tips and suggestions to let your blooms last longer and their fragrance permeate your home and hearth. If an arrangement will be made in advance, select compact blossoms that will open to full beauty by the day of your party. Sprigs of pine, spruce, and evergreen, also juniper, are appropriate accents. Canella berries, decorative pods, pepper berries, pinecones, feathers, and eucalyptus are very festive.

Flowers in three sizes make beautiful and symmetrical arrangements. Adding greenery, berries, twigs, etc. add beauty and delight. Space flowers evenly inserting the largest variety first. Keep balance on all sides. Fill bare areas with small flowers. If using floral foam, soak foam in water containing flower food for 30 minutes. Secure the foam with floral tape.

Vases are not the only things that you can use for holding your flowers! Experiment with clay pots, china porcelain, crystal, steel, or glass bowls, cups, champagne glasses, teapots, water pitchers, the list is endless. Just make sure that the container is clean and polished to complement the beauty of the flowers you will be placing in them.

For wide, open spaces, use blooms that are big with loud colours such as hydrangeas, gladiolus, and lilies. Big flowers can easily catch attention in a large room. You don't want the flowers to go unnoticed right?

Match the room's decor with complementary or contrasting colours. If you want to introduce a soothing effect in a room, use flowers in colours such as blues and greens. For a warmer look, oranges and reds will do the trick. For a subtle arrangement, yellows and peaches are the best choice of colours.

How do you know which flowers go well with each other? There are no hard and fast rules, but you may want to choose just one type of flower for your bouquet (this is called a monobotanic arrangement) or one colour with varying shades (called a monochromatic arrangement).

Think of the blossoms as building blocks. Each has colour, texture and form. They each have a personality and many have a tradition. The rose is elegant and says love. The carnation is sturdy and says you can count on me. The orchid is exotic and dares you to dream.

If you are new to arranging or still struggle with how to put colour together, take heart, there is help in the form of what's called the colour wheel. It is made up of primary colours, secondary colours and intermediate colours. The first thing one needs to understand, is that the primary colours are only three colours, red, blue and yellow. All colours are made from combining these colours but you cannot make red, blue or yellow by combining any colours.

Red is a very hot, passionate, and strong colour. It creates drama in an arrangement. Red can make you think of Christmas or valentines.

Yellow is a happy colour and evokes a feeling of anticipation like you experience when spring has arrived and the sun is shining and things are coming back to life. Birthday arrangements or baby arrangements often have yellow as it does evoke that feeling of cheerfulness.

Blue is a cool colour and creates a softer feeling, as you may experience when looking at the sky in the summertime.

Combining primary colours together creates secondary colours. Red and yellow make orange, red and blue make purple and yellow and blue make green.

Orange is a dramatic colour, not as hot as red but it still has impact. If you want an arrangement to have the autumn feel then you should combine colours such as browns, gold or a bit of yellow and red-orange together. It will make a bold statement.

Purple is a vibrant colour but unlike red and orange it has a calming effect. When you combine purple, blues, pinks and a bit of yellow together, you get this luscious vibrant and soothing arrangement.

Green is a universal colour that goes with any colour of arrangement. In nature all flowers spring up from greens so it is very natural to use them in all arrangements. In fact, I like to put together three different shades and textures of greens together before putting any flowers in my arrangement. It is very effective.

You can take any of these colour combinations and put them together in their lighter or darker shades depending on what mood you are trying to create. Also, you do not need to stick to just these colour combinations. If you want drama, try mixing together dark red, purple, yellow, and a bit of white. Contrast can make quite a bold statement.

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