On my online workbook this week: Those B00OOOoootunias though!

Dear

This week's inspiration is the trick to this week’s uplifting foliage treat Halloween design.

How you dry your plant material adds character and personality to your design. Usually we dry the plant material to, while fresh, face the opposite way than you plan to design with it.

As an example hang flowers upside down so that while they dry gravity helps you to position the foliage and petals so that if you turn them back with the flowers at the top the leaves are now frozen in time pointing up. This is a tried and true technique. And one that we have come to expect so it is easy to manipulate this expectation to add something unexpected to our designs.

Play with this to see how you can get unexpected results. Dry the flowers (or foliage) on their side… so that when you use them once dry they create a line for you that is horizontal and an unexpected “windblown” look, for instance or “swept in a current” for a themed design.

I wanted a levitating effect for my Halloween foliage so I dried them right way up in a vase with water… but then designed with them upside down so that the foliage looks… odd. Your eyes pick up that there’s something strange going on but you just can’t quite pinpoint what. The foliage droops down on the stem as it dried but the moment you turn the stem upside down it perks up… and now points up. Design with all the stems in the opposite way than what it dried in.

My tip for you this week is about drying plant material. Always dry whatever you plan to design with, in at least 3 ways. First flat, pressed in a book but then also hang some of the plant material in a low light but well ventilated area with some stems upside down and also right way around. And experiment with drying some in the microwave or to use silica gel to give you a variety in colour.

This way you have at least three design options of the exact same plant material in your design pantry to choose from when you design.

Enjoy!

Every good wish,

Christine

ps: I hang my stems in the way I plan to design with them when I groom them so that it is easier to see how the foliage curves. See the pictures above.