How to Arrange Flowers

Think of flowers as adding instant highlight to your color scheme, quickly bringing mood and color to a room. Fresh flowers are the high of elegance when entertaining, and present in every well-decorated home. Bring nature indoors and add height and color by using freshly picked flowers from your own garden with these flower arranging tips.

When choosing a vase, you will see that different vases fit different needs. A low vase next to a side table can be delightful, while a tall vase commands center stage on a buffet. Glass vases show green stems and colored or metal vases give additional color of your choice to a room. Choose your vase according to color and the space in a room that you want to fill.

A rule of thumb for flower placement is two thirds in the vase and one third out. This will give a good proportion so the flowers do not look lopsided.  Palms, long grasses, garden flowers, tropical sea grasses and even super market bouquets can all make dynamic arrangements. Do not overfuss with your arrangements, rather, stand back and see if you have achieved the desired impact of color that you want. If you haven't, you may need to add a few more accents.  Start by adding base flowers and turn your vase, adding as you go. Tall flowers should be placed toward the middle. If you have different colored flowers, space them evenly. Add your accent greenery last as fill in. The greenery should fill in bare spots and accentuate your lovely colorful flowers.

While any type of fresh flowers are great any day of the week, when entertaining, it is usually best to buy or pick flowers that can bring out a room's color. Add them as a reinforcing color element by adding blue bachelor buttons on a blue table or adding a bouquet in contrast as a fission of color. Pink flowers would be delightful with blue. Or try a complementary yellow arrangement with sharp green leaves. These ideas give height and color to your table setting and will bring nature indoors to create a mood of tranquil elegance.