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Whether you’ve been longing to craft a magnificent flower crown, or you want to adorn your door with a handmade wreath, learning the art of DIY flower arranging with floristry kits and online classes will help bring your floral creations to life. Our expert teachers will show you some great new skills, and you’ll learn the secrets behind taking your floral arrangements from basic to breathtaking!
Adding a floral arrangement to your home is one of the easiest and fastest ways to give yourself a mood boost, which means this is the perfect time to get to grips with some greenery. Flowers and plants can have a positive effect on mental health and wellbeing, and it’s been shown that spending time with nature has the power to alleviate stress, reduce anxiety and even increase productivity. A virtual class in wreath making, DIY flower arranging, or terrarium building is the ideal way to relax, learn a new skill and create something beautiful for your home.
Find your foliage
Choosing your flowers and greenery carefully is the first step to a beautiful floral display, abundant DIY flower crown or gloriously festive outdoor Christmas wreath. What you need to use depends entirely on the project, so for example, a large floral arrangement could be made up of huge, blousy blooms, but a more delicate headband might need flowers with smaller buds. If you’re arranging flowers in a vase or container, look for varying sizes and heights, and keep it interesting with a selection of different greenery. Try thinking outside the box, and adding in some dried seed heads or grasses to the vase to add variety and keep things interesting.
While the florist might seem like the first stop on your greenery journey, you can find plenty of treasures for your floral arrangement in the local hedgerow or back garden. Foraging for flowers and foliage will help you to keep your DIY wreath, headband or bouquet seasonal, and it’s one of the best solo lockdown activities to get you out in the fresh air and in touch with nature! For spring and summer DIY flower arranging projects, carnations, cornflowers, dahlias, hydrangeas, peonies and roses are all fairly common in UK gardens, and you could add a little height with stems of lavender, salvia and verbena or branches full of apple blossom. For handmade Christmas wreaths or festive displays, eucalyptus smells heavenly and looks beautiful, and ivy is incredibly versatile and easy to find. Top them up with old man’s beard, heather and lots of dried grasses and seed heads, and if you can find them, some stems with berries add a wonderful pop of colour.
If you decide to use a florist, keep it local and shop for your flowers with an independent supplier. Try to find one who stocks blooms that are locally sourced, rather than shipped from overseas - that way your floral arrangement or DIY flower crown will be as earth-friendly and sustainable as it is eye-catching.
Grab some tools
You don’t need lots of expensive tools to get crafty with an online floristry course, but a few basic essentials will help turn your creation from mediocre to magnificent, and make the process much easier!
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A simple pair of secateurs will help trim stems and foliage neatly, which will make it easier to arrange your flowers or construct your Winter wreath.
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A thorn stripper is a clever tool which quickly and effectively removes any thorns or sharp parts from stems.
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Floral tape and floristry wire are super handy for holding up stubborn stems or drooping blooms and will help to keep everything in place on your DIY Christmas wreath.
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A flower frog is a handy little tool you can place in the bottom of your container to use as a base for your floral arrangement. If you can’t find one, a good alternative is a piece of chicken wire placed over the top of your container - simply use the holes in the wire to support your stems as you build up your creation!
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If you’re making a DIY wreath, you can make the base yourself by intertwining flexible twigs such as willow - or you can cheat and use a pre-made wreath base! They come in a variety of materials, such as wood, metal and rattan, so there’s something to suit every style - they’re one of the most important tools in your wreath making kit!
Choose your container
When you take part in an online flower arranging class, you’ll need to choose your container carefully, as it can change the whole look of the display. It can be any size or shape you like, depending on what effect you’re going for, but you need to make sure there’s space for enough water to keep your blooms hydrated and looking lovely.
When looking for a suitable container, try getting creative. If you’re feeling crafty, a quick upcycling session could turn old glass jars, tin cans and bottles into beautiful vases for your floral arrangement. They might only hold a few stems, but smaller displays grouped together can have just as much visual impact as one large vase full of flowers. If you’re into all things retro, using old milk churns, jugs and stoneware bottles in your online floristry course is a great way to capture that vintage vibe for your home. Alternatively, keep it modern and create a strong statement with a grand vase in glass, ceramic or stoneware that will hold even the heaviest of blooms.
Get prepared
If you’re taking part in an online floristry course or wreath making class, it’s important to be well prepared and organised before you get to grips with your greenery! DIY flower arranging should be relaxing and therapeutic, so making sure you’ve got everything to hand will allow you to switch off, zone out and get creative. Cover the area you’re working on, then lay out all your tools and trim any leaves and thorns from the stems - this will save you time later on, and prevent any flower-related injuries while you create your spectacular floral arrangement. Lay out your flowers and foliage, then group them together by size so you can see at a glance what you’re working with. If all your stems are fairly similar, trim some of them to different heights so there’s a bit of variation.
Make it social
Getting crafty with nature is great if you’re looking for fun things to do at home, and it’s a brilliant way of bringing the outside inside during quarantine! Not only that, but an online floristry course is also a fantastic way to get social during lockdown and social distancing; think an online flower crown class for a virtual hen-do, a family crafting session for handmade Christmas wreaths or a terrarium workshop in place of a birthday party. You could also get to meet fellow budding florists by choosing to take part in bookable public sessions, where the live-streaming element allows you to chat with other participants as you create your floral masterpiece.
Switch off and start arranging
Take a breath and relax - it’s time to get creative! Taking part in online floristry courses should help you unwind, so don’t overthink things or worry too much about your floral arrangement looking too perfect. Avoid getting stressed or annoyed, as that’s the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve! Use your intuition, and follow our top seven tips to achieve your floral goals:
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Trim an inch off the stems at an angle, as this allows water to travel up more easily, and also remove any leaves which fall below the waterline. These tricks will help your blooms stay bountiful for longer!
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Arrange your flowers in groups of three or five, to avoid it looking too symmetrical.
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Remember that less is more! Whether you’re crafting a DIY flower crown or making a wreath at a virtual Christmas party, overcrowding or stuffing will ruin the overall finished effect.
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If you’re getting to grips with a flower arranging kit, try to make the display one-and-a-half times taller than the container for balance.
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Start with the heaviest blooms, and arrange around those, keeping the smaller headed flowers to fill gaps at the end.
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Add some flower food, refresh the water regularly and keep your floral creation away from central heating or direct sunlight.
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