GATHER YOUR INGREDIENTS

Forage your favourite seasonal flowers and branches from your backyard, a back alley or pick up special stems at your local flower shop.

There is no “going wrong” here; simply pick what catches your eye. It could be very big stems or tiny little buds. It could be using a single ingredient or mixing a variety.

If you are choosing stems with buds, it's always better to go with the ones that haven't fully opened yet, so that when they are in your bouquet they slowly start to blossom.

Here we used quince, willow, butterfly ranunculus, huckleberry berry, and salmon berry.

*Please avoid parks, public spaces and forests and private properties.

Nassi from The Wild Bunch picked out the Obakki Bol Vase in large for this spring bouquet. 

CHOOSE YOUR VASE

As you build your bouquet, you want all of your leaves to be above the water line (just bare stems in the water) because if they touch the water, bacteria will grow and your bouquet will start to die.

CREATING SHAPE

For stems, work with their unique form and trim off the extra pieces to further define that shape.

Enhance the beautiful lines already present in the stem, and edit the extra branches and leaves around it to further highlight that line.

Keep the trimmed off pieces - they will come in handy later as we build our bouquet.

CREATING LENGTH

To do this, gather your tall stems and start adding them to the back, tilting them outward. This will create a feeling of expansion in your arrangement.

CREATING SCALE

Using varied stem lengths to draw the eye throughout the arrangement, remember to keep shorter stems to the front, taller to the back.

We find that creating asymmetry is always interesting and helps to define the shape of your bouquet.

Tip: When we build our bouquets, we love having an element of unexpectedness or some kind of surprise to the scale. This sudden shift will enhance the overall arrangement.

CREATING SPACE

You want each stem to have its own space. Negative space highlights each ingredient.

Another way to look at is, if your bouquet becomes overcrowded, the beautiful lines and definitions in your stems get lost.

As you're adding in stems, don't be afraid to edit out any extra side branches to further augment that space.

CREATING DIMENSION 

From the earlier steps, the tall stems in the back created scale. Now we want to move to the front and bring depth and dimension to the arrangement. In other words, adding volume. We accomplish this by adding smaller ingredients to the front.

Use your shorter stems, scrap stems or flowers. These are elements that you can easily find at your local florist.

Start adding them into the front, leaning them towards the outer edges, to bring the bouquet together.

THE FINAL TOUCH

Once the design is finished, place it in a clean space with a blank background, you’ll be able to see any details that may be out of place. You can always add some extra elements as a final touch!