About a line

Skewered Eucalyptus leaf line-up armature

Thread leaves through wire

Bending blades of grass to shadow over a design

Removing Oasis Floral Adhesive glue spills

The finish of every design should be flawless. Make sure there are no bits of glue visible in your design by carefully removing all traces of spills.

Foliage Pleat Garland

Folding a garland from strips of a Aspidistra leaf

Free standing basket

I tied the strong inside veins of the 5 Aspidistra leaves (that I used to make the garland with) to make my basket armature.

Spiked Autumn leaf cauldron

Pike a few (hundred!) autumn leaves to build up a hollow leaf armature

Construction Lumber and Dowel Spike Armature

Drill holes in a piece of lumber and insert dowel sticks to create an armature

Twig Zipper

I wanted my Zipper to be "edgy" rather than "peaceful", so using bamboo or reeds or willow would not be appropriate.

Manipulating stems: Snapping at an angle, Bending, Spiraling, Curling and Straightening

Most stems, twigs and even sturdier branches can be bend into shapes. It takes practice and more than a bit of patience. The main idea is to slowly manipulate the branch without breaking it.

Stretching leaves and foliage into a ringlet curl

Most leaves and foliage can be slightly manipulated to curve or curl.

Tap in support for horizontal placement of your top heavy flowers

Placing gladiolus stems horizontally so that the stems... disappear.

Frond Support for short stemmed flowers

Create an all natural fern grid to arrange your flowers for a summer display.

Standing flower stems upright In Perlite

I use perlite to root my cuttings... and to support flower stems in an upright position in designs without using floral foam.

Suspended, suspended buds in a zig zag grass thread

Suspend flowers in tight bud to slip over a folded and threaded grass grid

How to skewer foliage tubes for a lily bud swirl support

Ombre designing with the smallest to the biggest lily buds in a shallow container.

Loop and Twist a Wire and Twig Tangle Grid

Wire twigs and wire around a shallow container to keep your floral details suspended in water in a shallow container.

Skewer and thread a double layer foliage ruffle collar to slip over a bud vase

An easy to do and quick to add decorative detail to dress up contemporary floral designs.

Quarter fold and Thread an Autumn leaf tube armature

This armature is actually made of four times as many leaves as what it looks like to create a hinge to fan the entire leaf-tube open yet keep it's shape.

Stack a Stack of Stems to create a sturdy grid Armature... with some height

Stack green lily stems to create an upright mechanic to keep shorter stems in place.

Sparkling Eucalyptus Tabletop Christmas tree

Craft an ethereal Christmas tree from Eucalyptus leaves, twigs and sparkling snow flake crystals.

Autumn leaf Christmas tree stack

Stack autumn leaves, from big to small to look like a tiny Christmas tree

Tap in a Twig Support

Wedge snipped twigs into a glass vase to act as a support for your flowers

Stack two glass vases to keep a leaf upright in water

Slip a leaf into the gap between two glass containers to keep it upright... and add a plastic lining to support the flowers nestled into it.

Pleated Pleasure

Pleats are accordion like folds of equal width in alternating opposite directions in any kind of fabric. I absolutely love the tight buds of Allium and they represent the "pleasure" part of my design

Touchstone

A Touchstone is something or even someone that you can rely on to evaluate the strength or worth of an idea or concept.

Designing Body Blooms

Designing Contemporary Floral Accessories and Body Flowers Article in the Canadian Florist Magazine

Designing a Feeling

The emotions your designs inspire give real meaning to your work. My article in the Canadian Florist Magazine

As the leaves melt away

Spike a few hundred fall leaves to create a cauldron for Halloween flowers

Easy does it

Rip foliage to sprinkle as a light as air flower frog

Fine Tune

Thread cane through sticks to make a music inspired armature

A Point of Support

My contemporary floral art design demonstrated at the Canada Blooms flower show in Toronto.

WAFA 10th International Flower Show in Boston USA: This Glorious Earth

I wove my Zipper from just over 300 short, dried rose twigs with tiny thorns on them. The delicate "fabric" at the back of the design is woven rose bush roots. Aranthera and Aranda orchids in tiny test tubes covered with rose stem bark are placed in the Zipper design.

Half the Fun

Cut a cabbage to create a design platform

The ties that Bind

Bind a lily to create a trumpet shape as it opens

Make the design

Weave a reed cradle to suspend orchids from

Biomimicry

A design demonstration and workshop at the Floral Trends Design group in South Africa exploring how we emulate nature’s best biological ideas to solve our modern day design problems.

Look at me… doing math!

Adding our own "bit" to our floral design work.

Standing in frond

Standing your delicate flower stems in a fern frond.

Spring Row

Viola and chives cleverly dancing upright in a row.

Bud… bud… bud… they were feeling so… very blue

When life hands you dyed flowers you make... well creatively speaking it turned out to be not such a bad thing after all!

Because Why

Adding the smallest details to absolutely make the design.

Doing a loop tangle twist

oh yes, a light an airy design showing off those very first autumn leaves.

Take a Stab at it

Skewer a few leaves to turn a single carnation in a bud vase... into an occasion... all by itself!

With a thankful twist in the middle

Fold and thread an autumn leaf armature for a thankful Thanksgiving design

Add up!

Stacking green stems to create an armature for short stemmed flowers.

Oh Florist-tree

Craft an Eucalyptus Christmas tree

It all stacks up

Quick and easy: Stack autumn leaves onto a wire for a... tiny table top Christmas tree.

Grow on it

Wedge twigs into a vase to create a grid.

How to make a stack of just enough:

Stack two vases to create a small gap at the side to keep a leaf upright

Eucomis

My Growing Gratitude design with a tray woven from green passion fruit vines and single eucomis flowers and "pumpkins" made from sticks and autumn leaves