So I've had a couple more sessions of my floral design course and thought I'd share some photos! The picture above is from last week's class, a hand-tied bouquet. It's called "hand-tied" because you hold it in your hand while you "tie" the flowers together by lacing the stems together, starting with the outer foliage. (Note: I'd been calling the bouquets I did for the wedding "hand-tied" bouquets ... I was wrong!) This creates a very stable arrangement that holds it's form when you plop it in the vase. 
Tonight we did a very fundamental arrangement of long-stem carnations in laced with greens. This is the same technique one would use to vase a dozen long-stem roses, along with a variety of other flowers (like irises, tulips, daffodils, gladiolas, and gerbera daisies.) It starts similarly to a hand-tied bouquet but once the big-leafed foliage is laced together you put it in the vase. The rest of the flowers are laced directly in the vase. The challenge of this arrangement for me was keeping the carnations long enough and leaving some air in it all. I have tendency to make dense arrangements. (Looking at the picture I still go, are the stems too long ?? But the teacher said no so I'm trying to believe her.) The reason for all the height: long-stem roses are more expensive because of their long stems! The last thing you want to do is cut them all short, right?
Last, there were some extra flowers left after demo of a pave bouquet (this is the kind of bouquet I made for the wedding) and a pave arrangement. The picture above is the pave arrangement I made when I got home. Pretty!
