Fundamentals of Floral Design Handheld Arrangements

What I love about making bouquets is that you can take them anywhere. You will be able to bring flowers to someone and just share the beauty of flowers with them. I love making bouquets. It's just a really nice way of arranging flowers and sometimes can be a little bit intimidating because bouquets you're not going to make them in a vessel, you're actually going to make them in your hand. But I love making them because that means you're giving flowers to someone and I just find that really nice. So today I'm going to teach you how to make a hand tie, a bouquet to take away. We're going to learn how to style them in your hand. And the second thing we're going to do is wrap them so that you can take them somewhere. When you're going to make a hand tie like this and you just have access to the flowers in the supermarket, that's absolutely fine. I think you can make flowers look beautiful regardless of the flowers you have access to. Just look for, you know, main flowers that will look beautiful. Look for a lot of movement, delicate stems that will make this, you know, bouncy and dancing. The first thing you're going to do is work with your foliage. Foliage is going to be one of the great elements of your bouquet. The second thing you're going to do is support your delicate flowers with some of these space flowers. Then we're going to add some of these roses and dahlias and then the little gestures that are going to add movement to your bouquet. So what you're going to do is just hold your foliage like this. It's just very simple, you know, something that you can just create some kind of shape, finding a beautiful way to present your flowers to take away. The second thing I'm going to do is I'm going to grab some of these first layer flowers, which is always the support of my flowers. When you are doing this layer, just think about getting flowers that are textural, that are more resilient, and they can be a great support for more delicate flowers. After you do that, you want to start adding some of your roses. For this, I decided to use this spray rose. This is called the Wabara rose, and I'm going to place it somewhere here. The only thing that I'm doing is just trying to give each one of my flowers their own space inside my hand so that they look beautiful when I wrap them and I take them with me. Once I have these, I'm going to go for some of my dark colors. What I'm doing when I do a bouquet to take away, I just want to group the flowers. I don't know how my friend or whoever I'm going to give them to wants to style them at home, but I want to give them in a nice way, so I'm just going to group them in a beautiful way and they can receive them, and maybe just want to leave them like that. The secret is always make sure that each one of them have their own space inside your hand, and the other secret is that you understand which flowers need to be higher because they're more fragile or delicate. And when you're working with your hand, things move. As you can see, this one just fell down. Don't stress. That's normal. You know, your hand is always going to be open and things are going to move and just shake, and that's just okay, you know? You have to understand that you are not holding this inside a bezel. This is your hand, and you want to keep your body quite relaxed, and you want to open your hand so that you don't squish the flowers. Now I'm going to add another color, and maybe I want to place it somewhere here, and for it I'm just going to grab another type of dahlia, just place it inside my hand, making sure that I give each flower its own space to breathe inside my hand. I guess the main secret is that you have to relax when you do it. Let's add a little bit more roses to this, and if you're wondering how do I choose what I need to go after, I don't have any kind of rule. You just have to grab your flowers and just feel, you know, in your hand what will look nice. It's funny because somehow you have to hold them, but you have to be gentle, and if you don't, you will end up with something that looks really tight, and this is just a nice way to take flowers to someone, you know, just grouping them, putting them together, and you want them to look graceful. So the last thing that I always do is add movement into anything that I do, so I'm going to add little gestures, beautiful flowers to live on the top of this hand tie, making another layer of flowers. So how different this looks than buying just the flowers from the market and putting them, you know. This looks just amazing. It's a nice way to take flowers to someone. So now I'm just going to turn this around a little bit, just to make sure that the back looks beautiful too, just by adding one or two flowers that will be sorted, and the last little thing that I'm going to do is just add these beautiful vines. I just really love how they will make the color palette more beautiful and all the movement that they will add into this hand tie, and it just looks so pretty. What I love about these arrangements is that you really want to create a lot of movement. At the end, think about this. You're going to be walking with this. You want them dancing, you know, so that's really cool. I like that, and the other thing is I think that it's a nice way to put them inside a paper because we're going to wrap them, so you really want the delicate stems to pop out so that they don't get damaged when you wrap them, and that's it. I'm ready to tape it. I'm going to show you two ways of doing this. You can use a rubber band, if that's what you have at home, or you can use a tape, but maybe you just have a rubber band and that's fine. So when you use a rubber band, you just have to be mindful of one thing. You have to wrap the strongest stem that you find in your bouquet because you can damage otherwise a stem that is quite fragile. So just wrap your rubber band, go in a stem that you find that is quite strong, and give it a look, and go back to it, and that's it. You tape it. You see? How easy is that? And then for people that doesn't have a rubber band or prefer to use a piece of tape, waterproof tape, which is actually my favorite way of doing it because I feel with a tape you don't squish or tie the flowers too much. If you need a hand, just ask someone to help you because this can be a little bit tricky, but that's it. You're going to hold your bouquet on the side, grab the piece of tape with your thumb, and just make one loop and another loop, and just tie it. That's it. What I like about this way of doing it is that I give my flowers more freedom to move, and I really like that. I just want flowers to have space to breathe, not to be very tight, and that's it. I'm ready to put it in a paper and take it with me. Now what we're going to do is prepare these flowers to go, and for it, I'm just going to use this rough cotton. In Mexico, we call this estopa, which is just something that will keep the flowers and the stems wet as they travel. So I'm just going to wet this quite a lot. You can also use a wet paper towel. I just like this. I feel it holds more water into it. So imagine you're going to be in the tube or you're going to be in a taxi or you're going to be stuck in traffic for long. This is just a great way of making flowers arrive hydrated anywhere. I'm going to use a plastic bag, and I'm going to fold my plastic bag like this. It's like making a little cocoon, just something that will hold water while I travel, and then I'm going to place this rough cotton inside. It doesn't look very pretty, but it's the way to do it if you want your flowers to last. Now I'm just going to wrap this. Before I do it, I make sure that I give them a last cut. It's always good to cut things before placing them in water. It's just really the safe way to make sure that flowers are drinking. You really want them straight, and then you're going to hold them like this and make sure that each one of the stems are drinking water from that rough cotton. And then tight this a little bit. You could add even more water if you're going to be traveling for a longer period of hours. And then again, you're just going to use a rubber band and hold this plastic with rough cotton in place. It's the right way to do it if you want flowers to arrive, you know, hydrated and not sad to your friends. So you can always take it off whenever you arrive there, but this is the way to travel with flowers. And now I'm just going to grab a piece of paper, and that's also good to protect them. This is wax paper. It's special for flowers, but if you don't have any of this wax paper, just, you know, maybe craft or other type of paper will work. What is good about this paper is that it doesn't break when it gets wet. So I want to put the flowers somewhere here so that I don't squish the flowers. If I place them here, I'm just going to wrap them inside the paper, and I'm just going to make sure that all the dancing beads are going to be outside the paper. And pretty much I'm just going to fold it. And when I do that, I just lift the flowers a little bit, you know, make sure that I hold them in place, just wrap them a little bit, and that's it. I'm ready to take these flowers with me anywhere. Now you have learned all the skills you need to make a beautiful hand tie to take away. I mean, explore with different flowers, any flower from the market, and just place them together in a nice way. You've learned how to select your flowers, you've learned how to put them together in a nice, simple way, wrap them. Just be free to explore with flowers, and flowers are always a great gift, so any way you do it, it's going to be beautiful, I'm sure.