Flowers + Plants 101
Recipe 4: Midsummer Night’s Dreamy
Friday, July 14, 2017
When I first got The Flower Chef to page through before we started this project, this arrangement was one of the first to grab my attention. The wooden flowers, pairing of elegant and rustic, and overall “Magnolia-esque” feel was one that I couldn’t wait to create.
As it turns out, we had to improvise a bit with the ingredients for this bouquet – and while I was admittedly a bit bummed at first (I was so intrigued by those wooden flowers!), the overall look of this arrangement certainly did not disappoint.
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
-William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
What you’ll need: To create this arrangement a la Carly Cylinder, here are the ingredients you’ll need. We used some different blooms for the sake of this tutorial, so if you want the full thing, we highly recommend grabbing The Flower Chef for yourself!
3-4 stems of mini green hydrangea 1 bunch of white lisianthus or ranunculus (or 3-5 stems) 2-3 stems of large wood flowers 1 bunch of small cream or brown balsa wood flowers thick green floral tape small cylinder vase
Step 1: Prepare your flowers Cut your stems to the desired length and prep the mini hydrangea and lisianthus. Each lisianthus stem should have a single bloom when you’re done preparing them. Set the secondary stems aside – you’ll need them later!
Step 2: Spiral the mini hydrangea If you’ve been following along so far, chances are you’re reaching pro status at spiraling stems. Practice makes perfect! The first step in this bouquet is – you guessed it – more spiraling. So far, hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers to spiral, since their fullness makes it pretty much impossible to screw things up beyond repair.
Step 3: Pull through the larger flowers Next, pull through your lisianthus (and, if you have them, your larger wood flowers). Make sure you turn the bouquet every so often to be sure your florals are balanced.
Since we didn’t have the wooden flowers, we were able to omit several steps from the original The Flower Chef tutorial here. Carly recommends grouping the balsa wood flowers together with some raw cotton stems, which really does sound dreamy. For this tutorial, I used white Star of Bethlehem with the lisianthus to give the arrangement some added texture and height. A pop of purple also did the trick to liven this bouquet up a bit!
This is also where you will use those secondary blooms from the lisianthus. Add them in to your arrangement evenly to bring some greenery in!
Step 4: Secure your bouquet Using green floral tape or a rubber band, secure your stems together and wrap with twine, burlap, or ribbon if you’re planning to display the arrangement sans vase. Or, fill a vase half way with water and place your beautiful creation in for all to admire! While I had to stray from the norm a bit on this one, the end result of this arrangement was still just as lovely. The flowers within the bouquet continued blooming weeks after I created it, and each day it took on a new life and shape as more and more buds opened up. I think even without the wooden flowers, Joanna Gaines would agree that this bouquet is a beaut’!
As for the difficulty level? This one actually did run smooth, contrary to what Shakespeare had to say.
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All photos c/o Kelsey Rebman Photography
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
-William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
