Bring the beautiful outside, inside!
Heather Eales, from Church Park Flowers, is our next North Devon based business to be one of our special guest bloggers. Heather has kindly created a great activity for you to do at home on your own or with the family using items you can forage on your daily allowed walk. Don’t forget to tag us (@homesweethomekitchenstudio) & Church Park Flowers (@churchparkflowers) if you post a completed project on Facebook, we’d love to see your finished items.
Enjoy Heather’s article!
Now, I’m not saying that making an Easter centrepiece is going to change the state of the world right now but hopefully it will inspire you to get creative and make something new.
Like you, I’m in lockdown at home. We’ve not been out now for over 10 days. Unlike many other Instagrammers and bloggers I’ve been watching recently, I don’t have a stylish workshop space at home, I just have a very battered iPhone 6 and only access to limited materials. But that’s all that was needed to put together what I hope you will find an easy fresh flower Easter centrepiece – and most importantly it’s foam-free too!
Go on… have a go. It’s not like you doing anything else at the moment!
Materials:
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A pasta bowl (cereal bowls or other shallow bowls will work just as well)
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Some chicken wire
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Scissors
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Candle
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Foliage and flowers
A pasta bowl is a perfect size and depth for this arrangement. It keeps it low enough on the table and can hold enough water to sustain the arrangement. As you can see I only have plain boring pasta bowls, to be honest, you don’t see much of the bowl in the end but a prettier more stylish bowl can only add pizazz to the final look. No pasta bowls? Then a cereal bowl or any other bowl will work just as well.
We are going “foam free” so to have support for our stems we need a “grid”.
Chicken wire is perfect – just cut a piece a bit bigger than your bowl and scrunch the edges over to form a flat ball that fills the bowl.
If you can’t access chicken wire at the moment then you can easily make a grid on your bowl by using tape – pot tape, insulating tape, surgical tape – any of these will work.
Candles are optional. I desperately wanted a long taper candle but don’t have any at home! The size of the arrangement really needs it but in these “make do” times I’ll just have to get over it!
Add water.
Foliage:
Have a forage around the garden or on your Government approved daily walks (sneak scissors in your pockets!)
I used: sage, rosemary, veronica, pittosporum, eucalyptus, some new beech leaves and leylandii. The good thing is you only need short pieces – around 4 inches / 10cm long – so some gentle pruning is all that’s required.
Strip any leaves that would be below the water line and then fill your bowl with greenery. Keep it low but natural-looking – dangling over the edges is good but make sure the stem stays in the water.
Flowers:
Again I have stuck to flowers that you may easily have in your garden at the moment or can find in the hedgerows:
Daffodils, Muscari and primroses are all I used. You may be lucky to have camellias out and other blooms, but I don’t like to show off!
Once again you only need short stems so wind damaged stalks on daffodils and even little primroses work a treat. Dot the flowers throughout the arrangement – to keep the natural look don’t be too regimented in how you place them. Start with the biggest blooms and fill in spaces with smaller flowers
I added a few feathers and some blackthorn blossom to finish it off. All that’s missing is that long taper candle!
Keep the water topped up with fresh. The foliage should last at least a couple of weeks and it’s easy to replace the flowers once they go over.
Now it’s your turn. Give it a go and make sure you share pictures of your arrangements with me.
Don’t forget to tag us on and we’ll share them out.
Feeling inspired?
If you feel inspired take a look at Church Park Flowers blog (www.churchparkflowers.co.uk) for more ideas or follow us on Facebook to keep up to date with more project ideas.