restrained

arrangement of 'mysterious' parrot tulips, bearded irises, 'combo' roses, japanese ranunculus,
hyacinths and viburnum berries

with cube vases or standard florist vases, i always feel more restrained with my designs.  it's not necessarily a bad thing.  some arrangements are more wild and others more conventional.  vessels are pretty important for a design -- after all, a vase can take up to 1/3 - 1/2 of the arrangement.  so when a cube is involved, i think of symmetry in the overall shape.  but symmetry doesn't mean boring.  the flowers don't need to be showing at the same plane and that allows for visual interest.  and you need crazy flowers, such parrot tulips (they open wide and are ruffly, like sweet peas), a variety of shapes, a nice color palette and lots of greenery.  love greenery.  so underrated but it can bring everything together.

also no floral foam for this arrangement.  i try to avoid foam whenever possibly.  foam is environmentally unfriendly and frankly i don't want to breathe in green foam particles as i cut it up (can't be good for you).  i taped up a 4 x 4 grid of squares as my floral frog and built layer upon layer of greens, then flowers and finally filled up the empty spaces with more greens.  i find taping a grid works best for cubes.  and when the flowers pass their prime, there's only a little bit of tape to pull off and the vase can be passed back to me for re-use.

arrangement of 'mysterious' parrot tulips, bearded irises, 'combo' roses, japanese ranunculus,
hyacinths and viburnum berries

arrangement of 'mysterious' parrot tulips, bearded irises, 'combo' roses, japanese ranunculus,
hyacinths and viburnum berries

arrangement of 'mysterious' parrot tulips, bearded irises, 'combo' roses, japanese ranunculus,
hyacinths and viburnum berries

arrangement of 'mysterious' parrot tulips, bearded irises, 'combo' roses, japanese ranunculus,
hyacinths and viburnum berries