On my online workbook this week: Some Handmade Meaning

Dear

This week's inspiration is using craftsmanship to design luxury into your floral work. As designers we get to define what luxury means. For me it begins by asking: how easy is my design to live with?

Floral art, like all art is created for the art of it. There is no need for it to be useful. Design, however, always has a purpose. It is what makes creating our floral art designs so unique and fascinating. Our work needs to be functional designs as well as be luxury one of a kind artworks. We create somewhere between art and design. Our floral art expresses a theme or an idea or message or feeling, yes but floral designs usually also serve a function.

When it comes to designs we live with, the functional side of floral designs, whether it is body flowers we wear or designs for our living spaces you have to consider the people who share the space with the design. The design should never be harmful (of course!) but we go even further than that, don’t we? Our designs need to be comfortable, even luxurious.

It is luxury born out of great craftsmanship. When we know what we are creating and why we can design in those things that add this bit of luxury. No matter how creative or how meaningful, if the design is uncomfortable or causes discomfort it fails. If a design is causing an allergic reaction or is pointy or scratchy or obstructs your view it will be discarded quicker than you can say: “wilt”. If a wearable design is off balance and flops around it is annoying. And it fails to serve its function.

My tip for you this week is about using the magnet stick as a foundation. Everything you add on to the corsage radiates out of the magnet stick foundation. For the designs to work even when broken up into smaller designs, glue the entire corsage magnet (from the magnet to the handle) to the leaf and then glue all the design details to the magnet to conceal the entire magnet area. This way you only need to focus on picking up the magnet and protecting the leaf when you take the design apart and not the smaller design details as well because you know they are secure.

If they are all secure the design moves as a unit and wont come undone even if you pick it up several times as I did to film the Tutorial.

Enjoy!

Every good wish,

Christine