My Creative Workbook

Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman

When Autumn Fall

Autumn (or fall, depending where you live) is undoubtedly an extraordinary time of year for floral designers.

Autumn Fall Composite leaf rose

The flower market is stocked with berries and pods and pumpkins of all shapes and sizes.

When Autumn Fall twig and leaf rose

And even though autumn officially starts on September 23 you can already feel it in the air and slowly coloured leaves are fluttering to the ground

When Autumn Fall dried leaf rosette rose

Its a temptation to great to resist. I just had to gather an entire basket full of leaves to make my composite rose.

Lisianthus, lily grass, poppy seed heads, twigs and leaves

Poppy seed heads (Papaver somniferum) and the pistils of Lisianthus (Eustoma) flowers are arranged on a twig and lily grass collar. The composite rose is made from Katsura Tree (Cercidyphyllum japonica) leaves

The poppy seed heads are in water filled test tubes. The bit of weight on the ends of the seed heads helped to balance them as they hanged over the design.

Every week I add a new design with related tutorials. Be sure to subscribe to receive an email notification with design inspiration.

Tutorials

6 September 2011 Autumn leaf Roses

I used to make baskets full of these when I was a little girl. We had a big Acasia thorn tree and I used to spear my “roses” onto the tree pretending I was the fairy responsible...

6 September 2011 Autumn leaf Composite Flower

Glue a round Autumn leaf Composite Flower.

6 September 2011 Twig collar

Create a light and transparent collar-base for the large composite flower to nestle into.

6 September 2011 T-Wiring

A t-wire create a stem to insert grass or twigs to shadow a design without laying flat

Favourite Flowers

Papaver

Poppy with poppy seed heads

Related Designs

24 July 2012 A little bit of Art and Soul

A twig structure with roses

14 October 2015 What a find!

Roll autumn leaves to create a frog to keep flowers upright

9 December 2015 On a Grand Scale

My article and a floral panel design featured in DIY Weddings Magazine

9 March 2016 Take your time

My article and Japanese paper flower armature design featured in the March issue of The Academy Leader- Academy of Floral Design, published by the The Floral Art Society of New...

11 May 2016 Pour

Glue a twig vase and melt some plastic to create a tumbling design

8 June 2016 When the wind whisper

Glue a fantasy forest from Popsicle sticks, grape vine tendrils and willow tips

27 July 2016 Too Hot!

Leaning floral stems to stand on their own in a shallow container

24 August 2016 Details

Glue twigs to create a vase shaped armature

23 November 2016 All things Autumn (by which I mean all things chocolate): Another perspective

This was the third design I did in my "All things Autumn (by which I mean all things chocolate)" floral art demonstration

6 September 2017 One of those difficult questions

Glue a bunch of twigs inside a container to create a round stack

8 November 2017 Psithurism

Craft a three tiered, dried autumn leaf armature

22 November 2017 How do squirrels Cache a tree?

Hoard a few acorns in the fork of a twig to show off a single oncidium orchid.

29 November 2017 Marcescent

Glue a delicate autumn room devider

2 May 2018 Over the rainbow

Craft a radiating design that suspends from the orchid stems

17 July 2019 … and... a bit more... effort… to make it special

Instead of just placing a handful of twigs and two stems of sweet peas in a vase... why not...?

25 March 2020 How to lay a little bit low

A flat-lay to celebrate finally finding the perfect way to dry passion fruit flowers... and my book's first birthday but mostly the drying of passion fruit flowers thing.

23 September 2020 Getting a head start on all that Fall-ing

Floral styling using mostly dried material that will last the entire Autumn.

14 October 2020 Stick it out… the creative spirit version

Soft minimal Fall armature making it easy to replace the flowers as the season progress.

24 February 2021 Picked up some proper Pruning

An early Spring design with a twist on using an old favourite: composite flowers.

11 August 2021 A bit Special... four dimensional designing

Using that little something that is unusual about your flower to make the design stand out.

27 October 2021 Ship Shape

The dry wheat stems are suspended from the outside of the container so that they remain dry and the flower stems can gently rest inside to remain hydrated.

9 February 2022 Pouring

Place a small fishbowl vase at an angle to look like it is pouring out flowers and twigs.

27 July 2022 Wrong on the right, for a right

A glued snipped to create a cooling cone for dangling orchids

18 January 2023 Getting the Band Back Together Again

Glue a band of snow dusted twigs to create a delicate armature for winter treasures.

25 January 2023 Even More

This orchid developed at the very end of a long stem... right as the rest of the flowers started to die back so I made a special armature to display the cut stem.

21 February 2024 I'll Go First

My Spring/Easter design and the introduction article about my floral journey written by the editor, Nina Tucknott in the latest issue of Flora Magazine.