How to make a heart-shaped floral arrangement for Valentine’s Day

*Don’t forget you can still link up your Party Parties through Sunday over here!*
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This project initially debuted as a guest post over at Honeybear Lane. Heidi and I swapped Valentine’s Floral arrangements.
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I used to do flowers often for weddings and love working with them. I did these arrangements for my sister-in-law’s wedding a couple of years ago.
You may not have the resources to make a giant arrangement like that for Valentine’s day, but arranging flowers isn’t as difficult as you might think. Here are a few flower arranging techniques you might want to try.
I made this heart-shaped fresh flower arrangement using wet floral foam, which is also called floral oasis. It’s actually pretty simple to use, and available in the floral section of most craft stores. You just really have to check the labels on the packaging because the dry foam only works with fake flowers, and they are both sold in packages of green blocks.
I decided I wanted to make a real flower arrangement similar the the fake one I made several years ago that was featured in my Valentine mantle design last year.
We all know that the price of roses becomes ridiculous right around Valentine’s Day, so I thought it would be fun to see what else we could use that would still look festive. I found these bunches of Alstromeria for around $4/bunch at my local grocery store. The roses were nearly $18 for a small bunch. That made my decision pretty easy. I wanted some variation, so I chose a darker reddish bunch and a lighter pink bunch.
I used this pretty ceramic heart dish as my base. It was the right shape and size.  Then I just needed to cut the foam to fit inside the dish. I cut it into a rough square before soaking it and made the rest of the cuts afterward.  When you get the foam wet, you fill a clean sink with cool water. The trick is to let the foam slowly absorb the water on it’s own. When it becomes entirely submerged, it is finished. Don’t push it under the water.
After it is wet, it is still pretty easy to cut, just stay near the sink, since it will drip. I trimmed and shaped the edges of the foam so that it would fit nicely into my dish. You can use lots of different containers. You just want the foam to fit snugly.
If you were going to use greenery in the arrangement, this would be the time to do it. Greens can disguise the foam and serve as a field for the rest of your flowers, but that wasn’t what I was going for here, so I knew I’d just need to position the flowers closely together. I used the darker flowers as kind of a border around the edges. Cut each stem pretty near the head. If the stems are too long you won’t be able to get the flowers in close enough.
Simply insert each stem all the way into the foam. Try not to do a ton of repositioning, as it becomes harder to get the stems to stay in if their are too many holes or they are too wide. I will say that alstromerias might not be the very best choice for a foam arrangement like this. I had to be careful with the delicate stems and flower heads. If you took the time to wire them, they might go in more easily. Roses and carnations work well, but we’ve already discussed the price point on those right now. You can use lots of different kinds of flowers, but the stronger the stem, the easier they will be to work with.
After going around the edges, I just filled in the rest of the shape with the lighter pink flowers. Again, cluster the flower heads tightly, so none of the foam shows through.
And this is what you get when you are finished.
I placed the heart dish on a red cake stand so it would make more of a statement.
You should know that this type of arrangement (without greenery) will use more flowers than you think it will. This is a small arrangement and it took everyone of the heads of the two bunches I purchased. Several years ago, I made citrus colored kissing balls for my sister’s wedding. I had several bunches of carnations, but by the end of the evening, I was sending my dad to every grocery store in the area to find any kind of flowers in the right colors to be able to finish the balls, since it took so many flowers for each ball.
The foam helps preserve the flowers, and they should last for several days. You can add water to the foam (carefully) if it is getting dry.
If you’ve been intimidated to try your hand at flower arranging using oasis (wet foam), I hope I’ve shown you how simple it can be. I’d love to see any Valentine’s arrangements you attempt!
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Comments

  1. what kind of flower did you use?

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