Dried Arrangements

Fall has bestowed upon us and the last of the fresh flowers have been harvested and hung to dry.

As the season takes its last sigh we close up our garden gates and put away our pruners. Looking forward to the lazy Saturday afternoons as the daylight slowly bleeds away.

The time spent in my studio pulling pieces down from my drying rack is a messy yet fun time for me. Sitting with all of the colors and shapes with endless possibilities for creating is my favorite time once the season has ended. I get to recede within my own mind and just sit will all of my dried babies to yet again give them another life.

There isn’t necessarily a science to arranging or creating a dried flower bouquet or craft. Intuition just takes over and you keep playing with the colors, shapes and textures until it pleases your own eye. In this process I have found that although Pinterest never disappoints when giving me ideas, I never mimic any one picture I see. Your own signature always comes thorough. Here are some of the ways in which I create dried flower bouquets and crafts.

This was one of my very first dried floral arrangements. I loved it so much that when I took it to market I priced it so high to make sure no one would buy it. Almost didn’t work since there were others that loved it as much as me. In describing my process I can only get you so far, after that it comes down to pure instinct.

For crafting

Step 1: choose a base in which to layer your flowers onto. I chose a piece of scrap walnut that my husband had lying around.

Step 2: choose your first layer. For me I chose a fern. The fronds gave me more width and also a background to lay everything against.

Step 3: Decide on a color scheme. I wanted this to explode with color so I chose my pink strawflowers, burgundy gomphrena, indigo lavender and white bunny tails.

Step 4: Add in textures to highlight the color palette you chose.

Step 5: Hold the arrangment up and away from you, your natural tendency to determine order will identify the areas that need more, less or a different texture.

Step 6: Keep adding, changing, holding colors up next to one another and don’t be afraid to tear it all apart and start over. The creative process is exactly that, creative.

Lastly, go with your gut. You will know when its done.