Last week I finally attended one of Studio Choo’s book tour events. I simply adore their new book The Flower Recipe Book, which includes dozens of how-to’s for creating beautiful floral arrangements. It lists tools, tips and has beautiful photography that make it so easy to study their technique. I’m slowly making my way through the book each week with a new arrangement!
The flower demonstration was held at an adorable bookshop in Berkeley. For a little over an hour, Jill & Alethea shared what it was like to write a book and then made two very unique bouquets to raffle off.
Both Jill and Alethea shared so many helpful tips of the trade. In between photographs I took notes for all of you:
- Always cut stems at a slant to allow the most surface area for water intake. If a stem is out of the water more than 30s, you’ll have to cut again.
- When buying flowers look for buds with firmness, but not too much green. If it’s already open, the flower will only last a couple of days.
- Start an arrangement with the sturdiest and strongest greenery or flowers. The stems will create a great base to weave other delicate flowers.
- Don’t let leaves or petals sit in an arrangement’s water, it will add bacteria and flowers won’t last very long.
And lucky me I won one of the bouquets! It looks absolutely stunning in my living room!
My husband was so sweet too! He knew I’d probably want to buy a few flowers after seeing the demo, so he surprised me with a couple of peonies.
Flowers are just amazing. I’m doing pretty well following my New Year’s resolution to keep fresh flowers in my home. I started a little herb garden window box and there’s plenty of dried flowers here and there. Like I always say, flowers are the easiest home accessory.
