On my online workbook this week: … And his little flower

Dear

This week's inspiration is crafting summer design simplicity. Instead of using a design solution that is kinda obvious go for something that would transform your design into something meaningful.

Yes, you can obviously skip the HowTo part of this design and place the flower in your bud vase and get on with admiring it. But for me the extra time I get to spend with my flowers deciding how to place them and what to add is the whole point of designing with flowers.

My tip for this week is all about this rolled grass. Place the end of the grass in your bud vase. Curve the grass over to the outside of your budvase (see the picture below) to find the point where it curves firmly enough to kick against the sides of the vase once you place it inside. You might have to lift the grass up in the water to find this exact place or even cut the grass stem shorter. This is where you should roll the leaf to place in the vase. Gently tuck this roll into the bud vase and release the dangling end to flop over to one side. Once you have your support in place you can play around and let your design tell your "story".

For my design I wanted to tell the story of those "a bit too warm" summer days. With the leaf firmly rolled in the opening of the budvase you can slip in your design details and position them. You can even lift and suspend the short stem cosmos flower giving the design some much needed height.

My cosmos stands upright shadowing the design like a parasol... my grass tip flops over and bobs and weaves in the slightest of breeze and my dragonfly looks like he can't be bothered to get up and do much other than be lazy on this summer's day. It's easy to see how changing these details even in the slightest would change the story of my design. For instance if the grass tip pointed straight up and if I chose a cheeky flower curving down to look at the dragonfly to would have made it look more playful. Imagine your floral details to be cartoon characters. How would they be positioned? What expression should you add to tell your design story?

Enjoy!

Every good wish,

Christine