Get Well Soon: part 1, prep

My mom had her other knee replaced at the beginning of December.  My goal was to take her some flowers while she was recuperating, but my family spent the 6 weeks following her surgery either out of town or contagiously ill.  Besides that delay, my mom doesn't like fresh flowers (they die).  YEARS ago, I put together a sorry excuse of a floral arrangement using her favorite fabric as inspiration: cream, dusty blue, and dusty pink.  (Yes, her fabric IS from the 1990's.)  Anyway, I thought an updated arrangement showing a little more skill was in order.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find dusty blue or dusty pink ANYTHING nowadays?

I had to settle for the spirit of the fabric and colors, but I think the mix turned out great.  I wanted something that wouldn't take up any lateral space, so I scoured Goodwill for a wall-hangable container and found two candidates.

Given the color scheme of the arrangement — and the fact that it's too cold to spray paint — I decided against the black.  Plus my mom loves hearts.  We have a winner!  The structure of the basket inspired me to use primarily the blooms as opposed to having any stem showing.  I went shopping for flowers (waiting for the periodic 50% off sale, of course) and pulled some floral foam out of my stash.

I used my fingernails to score a line around the third chunk of foam, then just snapped it apart.

I didn't want any of the foam to show through the holes of the basket, so I "lined" the inside with a scrap of coordinating wired ribbon that ended up being the exact length I needed.

Since I wanted to monkey around with which flowers went where before committing myself to stabbing the craft foam, I had the bright idea to turn over the basket and use it to hold up the flowers while I arranged.

First, however, I just needed to get everything trimmed down to size.  I used the pink rosebuds as "rulers" for clipping the rest of the stems, since theirs were strong and smooth.

This is my favorite flower of all those in the arrangement (and it was the most expensive...of course).

Some stems would be poked in upright.

Some stems would be poked in at an angle.

Enough flowers had been clipped to fill the basket, but it still needed a little something extra.  And man, is that ivory rose obtrusive or what?

My husband agreed that some leaves were needed for contrast, so I chose the stems that had the nicest looking leaves (and which weren't too long).

When I clipped them off, I deliberately left some of the main stem attached so it would stick in the foam.

The leaves and a few gold-glittered eucalyptus sprigs will definitely add some much-needed life to this arrangement.  Now, to take it apart so I can get on to the actual arranging!

Click here for part 2, arranging!