All-White Floral Arrangements: Elevate Your Home Decor

Are you one of those people who think white flowers are boring? Think again. White floral designs prove that simple can be stunning. In today's video I'm going to show you how to make three simple white arrangements that are going to bring a clean, crisp, sophisticated feeling to your home. My name is Ellen Frost. I'm creating a community of flower nerds online by sharing knowledge and creating connections. If you're a flower nerd, subscribe to my free weekly flower newsletter. The link is in the description. So I'm a person who really loves color, especially in flowers, but there's something so classic about white floral designs. I just love them and I love creating them to put inside my home. So today I'm going to show you the first arrangement is going to be a really simple arrangement that can go on an entry table or if you have like a island in your kitchen. This is going to be a very simple monobotanical design. That means I'm going to be using just one type of flower. I'm going to be using snapdragons. These are white snapdragons. And for an arrangement like this, I like to keep it simple. Simple vase, a clear glass vase, and a line flower. I like to use a line flower. So if you're not familiar with a line flower, a line flower is a flower that grows up the stem, just show you here, grows up the stem as opposed to like a peony that is a face flower. So for an arrangement like this, I love to use line flowers because they have a lot of, they draw your attention to them. So I'm just going to make sure that my stems are nice and clean. And then I'm going to start putting in my snapdragon stems. Now there is not a lot of design technique to this, but there are a few things that you want to remember besides keeping your stems nice and clean. As I put them in, I'm going to be sort of crossing them over each other. You can see in the vase I've made an X and what that does is it starts to make an armature to hold the rest of the stems in place. So as I put them in, I'm going to go around in a circle and I'm going to put them in at an angle. So I'm using snapdragons today, but you could use any white line flower that you have access to or that's available locally near you. You could use something like stock or larkspur or delphinium. Any of those would work great. And if you don't have those available to you, you could use a flowering branch like cherry or there's white quince. You could use mock orange, anything that has a white flower and a long straight stem. So you can see that I'm just still putting my flowers in at an angle and what you're getting is this nice fresh pop of white that really makes a statement. Even though the design is very simple and we're only using one type of flower, this is going to make a statement at your entry or in your kitchen. And I'm going to just be a little careful about how the tips of these snapdragons are pointed since they have a little bit of a curve. I'm going to make sure that they are not all pointing in the same direction. So anytime you're creating a design, you want to be thinking about the height and the proportion of your design. So this vase is about 12 inches tall and I want my arrangement to be no more than one and a half times the height of the vase. So I'm in this range right here. That's about where I want to stay. Anything taller is going to feel too lopsided and anything shorter is going to feel a little squat in this vase. And one last thing I want to say is as you're creating your design, you can see that I have the flowers right around the lip of this vase. You don't want to have a lot of stem showing, so I've cut these so that the flower is just pretty close to the lip of the vase because you may be looking at it not from the top down, but as you enter the house you're going to be seeing it this way. So you want those flowers to be right along the lip. So that is your entry line flower arrangement. The next design I'm going to show you is a low bowl that you can use on something like a coffee table or even on a side table depending on what size your bowl is. So this is just a low bowl that I'm going use a basic mechanic and a mechanic is just a tool that you use to hold your flowers in place. This time I'm going to be using a piece of chicken wire. This is a coated chicken wire and I'm just going to make a what I call a chicken wire burrito, which means I'm going to connect the ends here so that my chicken wire is kind of in a tube. And then I'm going to fold the ends in. There's no you know special fancy way to do this. You don't have to be extra careful. You just want to fold it in so that it fits inside your bowl and you just squish it in. And this bowl has a little bit of a lip on it so I don't need to tape it in. See it holds just by you know by the lip of the vase. So I'm going to fill it with water. Don't forget to fill your bowl with water. So for this arrangement I'm going to start with one of my seasonal favorites, mock orange. Mock orange is an amazing flowering branch. If you ever have an opportunity to use it in design I highly recommend it. It's highly fragrant and in this arrangement it is going to add a little bit of a green accent. So these stems are very long and I like to try to get as much use out of my stems as I can. So I'm actually going to cut it into two pieces and I'm going to use both pieces. And I'm going to do sort of a similar thing that I did for the first design. I'm going to cut my pieces, clean my stems and then I'm going to start putting things in in a circle and at an angle. And again even though I have a mechanic that is going to help me hold my flowers in place. And you can see some of this mock orange is in bud. Some of it is starting to open. It will open in the vase. So this is another treat about using a flowering branch like mock orange is that it is going to open in your vase. So right now I'm just using the mock orange to cover up my mechanics and to start to make the size and the shape of my arrangement. Next I'm going to use some stock. Stock is also a fragrant flower. It's a line flower but it has a lot of fluff to it. So this is a great sort of filler flower to fill in, cover up your mechanics. And these are pretty tall too. If you could get two cuts off of it maybe but I think I'm just going to clean it and use this top fluffy fluffy flower. Stock is actually in the same family as cabbage. I know it doesn't look like it but if you've ever seen a cabbage when it flowers after it's finished it has a similar kind of flower to stock. So again I'm just filling in, creating my shape. And because this bowl is low and it's going to go on something like a coffee table I don't want it to be too tall. I'm thinking about my proportion, my one and a half times the height. And I'm keeping it nice and low and if anything I'm going to make it a little bit wider so that it fills up a coffee table. The next thing I'm going to put in is my focal flower and this time of year I have peonies available. So I'm going to be using these white peonies and these are pretty open. They actually came in this morning pretty closed. So if you're using peonies, if it's warm and they're harvested at the proper marshmallow stage they will open in just a couple of hours. So I'm going to include these peonies and again I'm going to go just in a circle and I'm going to keep some of them a little bit lower, a little tucked in, and then a few a little bit taller so that they show off a little bit more. Now white, a white color palette for design is very classic and if you're including peonies I feel like that is just the ultimate classic white design. Everybody loves peonies and these white ones are just so lush and fragrant. All right so I've got my peonies in. This is a really fragrant arrangement but I feel like I can't not use these white freesia. They add a really different texture and look. They almost have a tropical feel and they have this little bit on the stem here of unopened buds. These buds will continue to open up the stem so I like to use them because they are really long lasting and really fragrant. So I'm going to add a couple of these freesia. Freesia is not very common anymore. They used to be more common when there was a lot more local greenhouses. Freesia really does in our area in zone 7a or 7a. They really need to be grown inside so you don't see them as often but whenever we have them I love to use them because they have the sweetest sweetest scent. I'm going to add a few white ranunculus just for a little bit of a different size because the peonies are so big and so fluffy. The ranunculus has the same feel but a smaller shape so I'm going to add a couple of these just for a little bit of a little bit of a different a little contrast in in size. All right and then lastly I'm going to add what I call some bits and pieces to my arrangement. This beautiful wildflower is called Orlea. It is so lacy and so beautiful and honestly it's going to be just like the perfect ending to this design because it's going to add some whimsy and some a little bit of light lightness to the design when you have all these peonies that are so heavy. All right so now you've got your entry arrangement and your coffee table arrangement. The last type of white arrangement I want to show you is just a little bud vase. Now creating these little bud vases are great because you can make as many as you want and set them all over your house. You can set them on your windowsills, on a side table, you can put them in the bathroom, put them on your desk and they are just the perfect little just a little perfect little pop of flowers. So I'm going to use my mock orange again. So all of these designs work together. They have the same kind of elements and I've just put two little pieces in at an angle. Bud vases are really simple. They're quick to come together and you still want to use your same proportion. So one and a half times the height of the vase is the max you want to be. And I do like to include all of my same elements. I have my greens, my foliage and my branches. I'm going to use a couple line flowers. I'm going to use a ranunculus as my focal flower because even though a ranunculus is a small bloom in a little vase like this it's going to show off as a focal. So I'm going to use that. I've got my freesia and then lastly I'm going to use just another little piece of this oralea as my bits and piece, my little bit of whimsy at the end. You can see how fast this came together. You can make a few of these and like I said you can sprinkle them around your house so that whatever room you enter you have a little pop of flowers to make you happy and bring you joy. If you found this video useful I hope you'll like it and subscribe to my channel. And if you're a flower nerd subscribe to my free flower newsletter. The link is in the description.