Christine de Beer - effortless floral craftsman
Nesting a small basket in a clematis vine for a “help yourself” Easter egg display
- 9 April 2025
- click to send Christine a smile
I like the idea of using vases.. not so much as a vase but rather as a display container or plinth. My design is more positioned on top of the vase than in the vase. Let me show you what I mean.
Fill a large and tall container with water. The water also helps add weight to create a heavy base for the design.
Measure out a clematis vine so that the stem end is short in the water but...
... the fork of the vine is flower filled and opens up to create a open cup in the opening of the vase.
Groom the clematis vine by cutting away all the foliage so that you only have stem ends that can catch around the design details to arrange the vine.
You can use a bought basket... but it is fairly easy to make one yourself to be exactly the right size for your design.
For detailed instructions on how I made the straw basket see the Tutorial below.
Book readers turn to page 46 where I show you how to make your own rope that you can use for your floral designs- a more decorative version of what I used for the basket if you want to level up. For more information about my book: The Effortless Floral Craftsman
Place a small basket to sit in the open cup created by the fork in the vine stem. The basket flares the vine open so that it can be arranged and the vine keeps the basket above the water to keep it from getting wet and spoiling.
For detailed instructions on how to make the straw basket see the Tutorial below.
Use the clematis stems to tangle the vine and the basket together. They are robust and can easily be hooked over and around the basket to secure it neatly in place.
Fold the vine over and around the basket to make it look like it somehow just grew that way.
My favourite fairy tale as a little girl was "Sleeping Beauty" or Dornröschen, Doringrosie, Doornroosje as the most common and direct translation, with "doring" meaning "thorn" and "rosie" meaning "rose". My fairy tale book that I paged through had these amazing illustrations of a castle overgrown by thorns and roses. That was the part that fascinated me. Not so much the princess or the sleeping for 100 years or even eventually the prince. I would play in our garden, building the fairy tale overgrown castle of my imagination every moment I could. I tell you this because this is also how I approach adding design details. If we were to find this in that overgrown forest... how would it look? Position your plant material on any armature thinking of how would these plants have grown if it somehow magically grown like this.
Weave and twirl in the more flexible stems carefully around the basket.
Making sure the basket still sits firmly on top of the display container above the water.
Add a few Easter eggs to be discovered in the basket.
And I finish the design with a few dew drop crystals and these lovely bunny tail grasses.
Take a closer look at the picture. I am adding two batches of the bunny tail grasses. One batch was left to dry to a straw colour (like the basket) and those are glued around the outside of the design and the other batch is harvested fresh... can you see the green stem poking out of the vase where it is hydrating in the water? I explain more about the how and why I am adding these grasses to the design in our email this week. If you are not yet signed up, I send out an email every Wednesday morning (Vancouver time) the moment the new design is ready for you to view. The sign up is below this post.
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