Now that I’ve properly soaked my Oasis Floral Foam and, placed it in the container, measured it to size, cut it and taped it securely, I wanna start adding some of my florals to the floral foam. So, I like to use the greens and the other elements first to give myself a structure.
So, start thinking about how big do you want this arrangement to be, how intricate, and cut your flowers to the size you think you want them. So, let’s start with the greens, we’ll give ourselves that structure, that framework. . . So, I’m gonna cut these . . . I don’t know, about yay high and I’m going to clean a little bit of the foliage off the bottom of the stem because I’m going to place the flowers in the foam with a few inches in the foam. Think about the foam just as you would think about water, it’s going to soak up to the stem and keep that flower fresh, or that green fresh. So, you want to make it’s in there at least an inch or two. And, I like to start with the middle of the structure and work out, so, that way, I’m ensuring I’m not getting crazy big. You, just like working with flowers in a vase, wanna make sure that you cut the greens and the flowers in the floral foam at an angle, giving a lot of surface area for the water to soak up.
And, everything you place in the floral foam, you should place in its position as straight as possible, even if you’re going to be angling out. So, if you start at the top, you can slowly place things further and further down on the Oasis, but you don’t want to place things at an angle that’s very sharp, even if you want it down here, because what happens is, the flowers go in, and you have a jumble of stems underneath, and when you place something down, it can’t sit in the Oasis. The flower tip must sit in the Oasis, so that it can drink water. So, I’m gong to start with my first piece of green, sticking straight up. You want it far down enough, as I said, a few inches down, so that it can drink the water, and you don’t want any of the stems that you placed subsequently to tangle up with that stem. So, you just keep cutting. . . Place it in. You don’t have to put a lot of pressure. Spin it around. . .
And, even with just 3 pieces in here, you’re starting to see this take shape. This is the really fun part about working with floral foam, because you have a lot of control over the shape. Anything heavy, or green, you wanna start putting in now, before any of the soft blooms. . . Get kind of wild with your structure. These branches are really fun, and they’re quite heavy because the stem is woody, so you want to put these in first. If you tried to put these in later, it might get really tight with all of the softer flowers you have and you might end up crushing some things. Keep spinning. Always spin your containers so that you make sure you’re filling in all your holes.
And, at the very end, we’ll make sure that the lip of the vase is covered, with either greens or flowers, so that nobody can see your secret that you’re using Oasis.