Get Well Soon: part 2, arranging

Click here for part 1, prep.

Now that all our stems are trimmed, we can actually start deciding what goes where.  I laid everything out by color family.  Notice what's missing?  Yep — little miss obtrusive, the ivory rose.  She was too much of a scene-stealer, and this production calls for an ensemble cast.

By the way, don't you love my flower holder?  Does anyone not have one of these white wire shelf things, or at least a white wire basket?  We have this stuff all over the place (much to my chagrin).  It's not very attractive, but it sure is functional.

It was perfect for separating my flowers without crushing them.  Or getting cat hair on them.

First, I started by placing the largest blooms, trying to balance by both size and color.  Yep, still working with an upside-down basket.

Next, the medium-sized clusters and blossoms were added.

Then the smaller sprigs and single buds.  But...uh, oh.  Little miss obtrusive has left a hole in her wake.  See it?  Above the blue mum at the bottom?  No, no — above my shadow.  (Hey, I'm sitting right under the overhead light fixture.)

 She was the right color, but just a little too big, so I decided to do a little deconstruction.  The inside of the flower had a little lip on it, so I had to pull from the bottom (which, in hindsight, made more sense anyway).

Off comes the fake sepal (after inadvertently turning it inside-out).

Next comes the little spacer dude, which was found between each couple layers of petals.

I took off the three largest petal sets, then replaced the two plastic parts.

Voila!  A sizeable ivory rosebud — not too big, not too small.

Perfect!

Next up, adding the eucalyptus (Christmas clearance).

Finally, some leaves tucked here and there.

Now that I have pics of my layout, I'm ready to take everything out!  LOL  Time to turn over the basket, put in the foam, and actually commit.  No going back once you poke those holes!

Click here for part 3, finale.

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!

Avoiding the Frozen Waste

Since I've started actually cooking for my family, I've also started accumulating leftovers. I store them with the best of intentions (as I was raised not to waste food) and even deliberately cook extra just to freeze for later. The problem is, I lose track of things in the fridge and freezer; they get shoved to the back or stacked on top of until...well, they're unusable. Ugh. Who knew leftovers could look like that? [shudder]

When I was at Dollar Tree a few months ago, I saw these photo pockets and purchased a couple. I didn't have a particular use in mind, but there were several ideas floating around in my head — posting Scriptures to memorize, putting up my personal affirmations, menu planning, maybe even photos! LOL

Then I thought, why not use them to keep track of the stuff I put in the fridge and freezer so I can USE it before it spoils? I created a simple Word document, printed it onto blank 4x6 index cards and popped those into the photo pockets (which, I was pleased to note, completely contained the cards instead of leaving the edge poking out). Here's the PDF, if you want it!

Now whenever I put something "odd" in cold storage, I write on the outside of the pocket with some overhead transparency markers I found in my marker stash. (I intended to use dry erase but the tips were too fat and they wiped off too easily. The wet-erase transparency markers are very fine and won't come off if I brush up against the fridge.) In addition to the name of the item, I also put the amount being stored. That makes it easy to see if I have enough for a particular recipe or enough to make a meal.

The only problem now is that I need to buy a bunch more of those magnetic photo pockets! They're pretty darn useful.