Hi! I’m Carly Cylinder, author of The Flower Chef. When I first started my floral design company Flour LA (it was going to be a café/florist at the time) nearly six years ago, I barely knew anything about design, so I’d experiment using grocery store flowers. This led to the thought that there should be an easily accessible floral design book that taught the basics. That book is called The Flower Chef and will be published next year, five years after its inception!
While we do complicated arrangements for events and weddings, my preference for at-home flowers is to stick to simple, easy designs that don’t take much time. As bad as this may be to admit, sometimes I don’t even have a proper vase or clippers on hand at my house, so I just grab whatever’s in my kitchen!
For this simple arrangement, I picked up three bunches of white flowers – daisies, larkspur (you could use delphinium, stock, or any tall white flowers), and lisianthus. Sticking to all white is classic, clean, and timeless.
10-Minute Flower Recipe
Materials:
- 3 bunches of mixed white long flowers with small blossoms (lisianthus, daisies, mums, veronica, stock, spray roses, larkspur, delphinium, calla lilies, etc)
- Small rectangle vase filled ¾ way with water
- Household scissors
First, remove all of the leaves from each stem for aesthetic purposes and to keep the water clean. Then separate the bunches out by type so that you can see what you’re working with.
Traditional Design
For a more traditional design, I make sure to keep the flowers evenly spread throughout the arrangement.
– Measure a larkspur stem against the vase, so that the length of the flower is about double the height of the vase. Cut all of the larkspur to that length.
– Place the larkspur evenly throughout making sure each stem is slightly angled.
– Cut the daisies 6’’ shorter than the larkspur. Place the daisies evenly throughout, making sure their buds are facing outward.
– Cut the lisianthus about 3-4’’ shorter than the larkspur. Group a few stems toward the center for impact, and then place a few more stems on each side, so that it feels balanced.
Modern Design
This design is actually quicker and is unisex. It’s perfect for someone that likes stark designs or is artistic.
– Cut each type of flower the same length as in the Traditional Design.
– Place the larkspur vertically against the right side of the vase.
– Angle in the lisianthus to the left so that the bottom of the stems are leaning towards to the right side of the vase. Work fast!
– Place the daisies to the left of the lisianthus, angling the stems towards the right side of the vase so that the blooms are sticking outward on the left side of the vase.
All of the flowers will hold each other up.
Leftovers
Use a juice cup, votive, or shot glass as a vase. Cut leftover flowers short so that the flowers rest of the lip of the glass. Keep flowers grouped by type and place around the home. These are perfect bathroom flowers or for a nightstand.
Tip: Keep flowers fresh but recutting the stems. Simply pick up the bouquet, keeping the design as tight as possible, and give a small trim to each stem. Dump out the old water, and add in fresh water. Place the bouquet back in the vase and adjust any stems that moved.
Photos by Matthew Cylinder
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