One of the many flowers growing in our garden right now, are these deep indigo Columbines. The flowers are extremely showy, with layers of ruffled petals surrounding the brightly colored center; which forms into a beautifully twisting seed pods. I’ve been really wanting to use these flowers, in an arrangement for a while but wasn’t sure what to do, until I put them next to my Lemon Teapot from Anthropologie.
Here’s how I did it:
1.To create this arrangement, start by measuring your vase to estimate how many flowers you will need. For example my vase, the teapot is only about 3.5 inches tall, so I don’t need very many flowers to achieve this design, only 3 small branches of Columbines, about 15 quarter sized flowers. Make sure the branches you pick have buds, blooming flowers, and seed pods the variety adds richness, and texture to this simple arrangement.
2. Then trim each flower off the main branch, while leaving it with a stem long enough to reach almost to the bottom of the vase. For my teapot the stems are between 1-3 inches long.
3. Next I cut a piece of Oasis floral foam just small enough to fit inside the teapot, the tighter the foam fits the more stable it will be, which is important since it’s used to hold your flowers in place.
4. The stems of the Columbine plant are to soft to go into the Oasis foam on their own, so use a skewer to make the holes for the flowers. I arranged the flowers by starting in the center, then carefully placed the larger flowers to fill in as much space as possible, finishing up by placing the delicate buds, and twisting seed pods.
6. Last but not least, remember to keep the flowers well watered. That way they last as long as possible, and don’t get droopy.
The Painted Rabbit 