What A Handful: Floral Art (Wk. 3)

Last Tuesday I tackled my first bouquet. I should rephrase that. I lovingly created a beautiful arm filled, life containing, bundles of joy. I am not sure how graceful I was while making mine, but lets just pretend I was smiling and humming while effortlessly creating the bunch. 

What I learnt about myself:
My hands are too small to successfully create a plump bouquet. 

The procedure for making a bouquet is pretty straight forward. 

1. First, strip off the leaves on the bottom halves of the flower stems.

2. Start off with two pieces of foliage in your non dominant hand. The foliage will give your bouquet dimension and fill in space.

3. Pick up the 'focal flower' and place it in between the pieces of foliage.

4. Rotate your bouquet and place the 'straight flower' into the bunch. 

5. Continue the process by alternating flowers and rotating the bouquet. Fill up the space as you see it. 

Focal flower: Tiger Lilies 

Line flower (straight flower): Chrysanthemum

Foliage: Viburnum

Filler: Misty (same as what we used with the roses in Wk. 1) 

As usual I started off pretty confident. How hard would it be to place and turn, place and turn?

Showing my first attempt to Michelle she said I was probably holding onto the flower too tightly. It looked quite small and bunched up. She suggested I start again. 

I laughed at myself. After all, it was my first attempt! I started a second time trying to remember to loosen my hand. But how could I do that if I had to hold onto all those stems! 

I didn't even finish the whole bouquet when I decided to start over. This time a little less positive. I hurriedly placed all my flowers into separate piles and took a deep breath. Ready to start round three.

When I showed Michelle my third attempt she said, "a little bit better, it's getting there!" She joked around with me making me show her my hand. All red and tired. 

"Maybe you'll only be good at arrangements and not bouquets. You're hands are so tiny!"

This joke didn't offend me at all. Of course I have the ability to make bouquets, but maybe it just doesn't come naturally to me. I am not going to bully myself because of my small hands.

At this point I was satisfied. I decided I will have to settle with my third attempt. To settle, with my bunched up confused bouquet. I accepted that I would not get it perfect. 

We proceed to wrap our flowers with clear cellophane and green non-woven material. We created a nice bow to finish it all off. 

It was hard work putting the flowers together. Holding them in one little hand while making sure all the flowers were in the right place is tough!

When we received the Tiger Lilies, none of mine had bloomed yet.

For the first couple of days I didn't really look at my flowers at all. I put them in a vase on the first night then left them.

When I woke up on Friday morning I was shocked. Some of the Lilies had bloomed. They had suddenly popped open into perfect, attention grabbing, pink beauties.

When we become so focussed on our tasks, and keep our heads down, we do not see the joy and potential that surrounds us.

Beautiful and positive things are waiting for us to notice them. You may not think they are there. But they are.

Patiently waiting and waiting...

Until finally.

One day, you'll see it.