Fun With Flowers...again!

It's so cold and kind of dreary outside. I thought today I'd do a post about a past event that I helped out with. Each year I participate in an event called the "Book & Author Dinner". It's a really neat event where we have three or four authors come to a dinner and speak about their books. We have it at a large hotel in town and after the dinner the authors stick around and sign their books, which we sell copies of. I've done the flowers for the past several years. Last year was a particularly fun year with the flowers. I kind of left my comfort zone and did something a little more modern but ended up loving it. It was so simple and yet really elegant at the same time.

The first part of the evening takes place as a cocktail/welcoming party. I did one large arrangement and several small arrangements for that.





This larger arrangement was basically floral foam in an urn with tulips, forced quince branches, curly willow and bunches of spanish moss added to the branches. We also threaded some orchids in various spots to make it seem as though it was a live branch that was blooming. The effect was stunning. It was a huge arrangement, too, so only one was necessary.



These arrangements were put on the cocktail tables throughout hte room. Very simple to make. These were rectangular vases filled partially with black river rock and very little water. I then took bamboo branches (it's not bamboo...it's called something else but I can't think of the name. maybe grass reeds?) and tied several together with raffia. I then took three cymbidium orchids and threaded the stems into the raffia ties. The great thing about cymbidium is that it can live without water for about 36 hours without wilting.



This guy was tons of fun to make. I took a large glass cylindrical vase and placed two rubber bands around it. I then cut the bamboo reeds to the correct length and threaded them under the rubber bands. I tied raffia around the rubber bands to hide them. I then filled the vase with black river rock and placed the manzanita branches in the vase. I LOVE manzanita. It's so versatile. You can spray paint it white for fun winter arrangements or coral/red for decorating you house. I love the coral red painted manzanita in a blue and white asian ginger jar. But I digress...
I just kind of placed the cymbidiums all over the branches and they managed to stay in place all night long. This was the centerpiece for the place card table.



Finally, the table centerpieces. I found these glass cylinder vases on ebay for about four dollars a piece. We needed 65 of them so the low price was key. I then just placed four or five tulips in each one and crammed some curly willow down the middle. The effect with tea lights all around them was really fantastic.

Each centerpiece cost a total of $7.50. You can't beat that! And...I still have the vases to use again and again.