Our first week we looked at prepping flowers correctly, the tools we need and how to create a hand-tied bouquet.  I love hand-tied bouquets – it’s a more European way of arranging flowers and I love the tight arrangement of flowers. It does need a lot of practice though. I found it quite tough to keep holding on to the large amount of flowers while completing this – but I think the first try turned out quite nice (top left).

The second week we worked on an English Garden arrangement, something a little more flowey and natural. This was a little easier, but definitely challenging in making it look nice from all sides (top right).

A couple of things I learned these two weeks that have nothing to do with technique:

• My choices in flowers are very limited in January and the quality is often less than stellar. This is the reason I used roses both weeks.
• Flowers are expensive, even when you don’t have them arranged as a bouquet and are doing the work yourself
• Creating bouquets leaves you with a lot of flower waste – you are constantly trimming, thinning your flowers and are left with a big pile of greens you can’t use for anything.

It’s fun to be doing this – a change in my creative endeavours. It’s also wonderful to have nice flowers in my house each week – beyond the easy bunch of tulips thrown into a vase.