On my online workbook this week: Your brain rewards curiosity on a grand…. kale
Dear

This week’s inspiration is always being curious. It grows those sparks of creativity.

I often talk about creating “lean in closer” design moments in our arrangements. Those tiny (but oh so clever) details that you deliberately add, to add interest to your work. Designing your designs, in other words. It is easy to see how this is especially important if you are designing for an audience (or judges…) that are already curious about floral arranging. As designers, we naturally scan for a… and want to know… how??? But adding novelty is not just beneficial when you are designing for other designers. If you do it right it makes everyone stop and pay attention for a bit. Adding novelty to your arrangements sparks our brains out of the fog of routine and we get even more benefit from being close to gorgeous flowers.

Design in some novelty rather than routine, even in some small way. Try something that is not the way we usually do things.

Usually we would place a twig on the display container as some sort of a grid for a design to let your floral details rest on that for support. The kale, however, is so robust that you can reverse this and let the floral details rest on the kale instead to make it appear as if it somehow weightlessly emerge out of the kale.

My tip for you this week is to choose a mature kale with a longer stalk. As the kale grows the central stalk lengthens as it fans outwards creating a bit more space between the rosette shaped leaves. Then choose a fresh, flexible twig with a fork in the stem (see the picture above) that you can bend open wide to slip it around the kale core or stem. The twig should fit snugly over the stem and not simply resting on the leaves. It should hover and lift. Also, make sure the leaves are not pinched in any way so that the kale becomes distorted and looks “uncomfortable”.

The perfect placement for the twig is either at a slight angle or horizontal, depending on what looks best in your own design. The twig should be tightly fitted around the core stem of the kale where it is thick and solid, above and below two leaves in the spiral arrangement so that it is concealed.

Enjoy!

Every good wish,

Christine