If there’s one topic I’ve wanted to share more of on this blog, it would be floral arrangements. I absolutely love love love flowers, but florist, I am not. That’s why I am so thrilled to introduce our new Floral DIY contributor, Sarah of The Stemmery. Sarah is just the person to help bring to life all of the ideas I desperately want to do, but lack the skills to actually pull off. For example, I asked her to create a flower arrangement that looked like you’d just gone to a summer farmers market and filled a tote with wildflowers instead of veggies. And this is what she created! Amazing, huh?
When it comes to summer and flowers, I can never choose a favorite. There are just so many. So many colors, scents, beautiful foliages in so many shades of green… When Joanna shared her idea of filling a seagrass tote with as much of summer’s botanical abundance as possible, I was delighted.
With all the variety summer has to offer, we started by determining a basic color scheme: a base of white and green, complimented by purples and yellows. Queen Anne’s Lace is one of my favorite flowers to use in summer — I buy it almost every time I go to the market. For this project I bought a big bunch of it along with a bunch of Orlaya, whose tiny white flowers and curvy stems mimic Queen Anne’s Lace. I think they compliment each other beautifully. I also collected a bunch of Larkspur and some gorgeous white dahlias. Next, I started adding in color and fragrance. Rosemary and lavender were easy choices, complimenting each other in fragrance, while the lavender added a nice soft purple to our arrangement. Finally, for the yellow, I selected a bunch of Salidago and a bunch of Rudbeckia.
We decided to create a more natural “gathered” look with this arrangement so it was really simple and didn’t take much prep work at all. Our tote was deep, so to get the flowers a little higher, we placed a book in the bottom of the tote and placed glass jars filled with water inside the tote (these simple vases are similar). Our end goal was for it to look like the flowers were laid directly in the tote, not arranged.
I started by placing the rosemary to create a sturdy base on the left side of the basket, followed by the taller stemmed flowers so they would drape over the side the tote, gradually moving towards shorter stems as I neared the right side. Then, I placed the dahlias and rudbeckia on the right side to protect the blooms from being squished, as I would if I was packing a tote at the market.
In the end, our tote looks like it was just brought home, overflowing with fresh flower market finds, but really it has been carefully arranged and all the stems are in water, ensuring this beauty will last for days. This flower arrangement would be absolutely beautiful for a summer brunch or even as an arrangement in an entryway.
A fun bonus of using lavender in an arrangement: when the other flowers die, you can save the lavender by bundling and drying it. Then use the dried flowers as decoration or to make sachets or other fun lavender scented treats!
photography by Meghan Klein.
DIY by The Stemmery for Jojotastic. Get more DIYs here!
