For our November main meeting Sadie Jones joined us to demonstrate how to create beautiful Christmas table decorations.
Sadie has 25 years experience of flower arranging and as well as an excellent demo with lots of hints and tips, Sadie shared some of her experiences and highlights of the flower arranging career.
We had great fun creating our own arrangement while Sadie circulated the hall to provide a helping hand where needed. Check out our Facebook page to see more photos of our completed decorations.
Sadie's top tips included:
Using 2 shortened wooden kebab sticks and floristry tape (or similar, not sellotape) to secure the candle in the middle of the arrangement. This was added first and the arrangement built around it
Build up the foliage around the arrangement in layers. Three or four layers is plenty and there's the option to choose different, possibly contrasting foliage for each layer. The bottom layer can also be a little longer than the others
Trim off the leaves at the bottom of each stem before insertion into the arrangement
Add festive decorations for the finishing touches which are often added in groups of three. Choose from cones (sprayed e.g. gold or left plain), cinnamon sticks, baubles, citrus slices, berries etc
Use raffia to tie cinnamon sticks together before adding floristry wire
Use floristry wires to secure the decorations (remember, 'twist, twist, twist'!) and leave enough length to add them to the arrangement
There's also the option to add a pretty bow for the final flourish
Sadie assured us that our arrangements will last well past Christmas with an occasional misting with water. This would not be the case if we'd used flowers as well.
14Kim Dennis, Susan Cousins and 12 others
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