This bouquet is going to look rather similar to the previous one; it has the same basic flowers, but I think the structure is improved.

Also, I focused on a few new techniques, like harvesting. I wanted to keep my flower types separate, and since I was only picking for one bouquet, this is the setup I designed:

My mom bought the plastic pitchers last year for some arrangements I made for an event, and three fit perfectly into the flower bucket that I picked up for free at Krogers. This arrangement was easy to set up and carry, and allowed for four different water compartments, in case I didn’t want the stems all harvested into the same buckets, and a total of six different places to corral the blooms! It kept everything neat and organized.

This next photo is awful because I took it against the grass…why??? I clearly wasn’t thinking. But it shows how well the system worked, everything in its place.

And it was a bit of tight squeeze, but the entire bucket fit into the fridge to chill until flower arranging time rolled around. Quite effective!

The arrangement went fairly well. I practiced the spiral technique again, but also ended up adding additional stems to balance visually after I got the flowers into the vase. I still have a lot to learn, but I was pretty happy with this arrangement! And our house smells amazing also! I love lilacs :).

I used this bouquet to try some different photo backgrounds. I recently went out looking for poster board to use as a backdrop, but all the sheets were small and more expensive than I expected, so I grabbed several pieces of fabric instead.

The fabric was considerably better than having my messy kitchen shelves in the background, but this vase full of flowers was too big to set in front of the fabric comfortably, and it also looked like…well, a sheet of fabric. Still, it was an improvement and worked fairly well for some shots. Others, not so much!

In the end, I preferred the shed door for photographing the full bouquet. I think it looks more natural, rustic, comfortable. I absolutely love the color palette in the following photo. It makes my heart sigh…

By the way, I’ve started the process of hardening off my little seedlings, and I can’t wait till they’re in the ground and growing strong. Then I’ll be able to relax a little!

Hopefully this summer will be full of many bouquets, beauty, and joy!

-Angela