pink – Page 2 – A Smith of All Trades

Another floral arrangement

July 9, 2014July 8, 2014 Jessica Smith

I got into another floral project the other night that was inspired by the arrangement I made last week and the boring TV show that was on right next to it.

Brian was watching Pardon The Interruption, which I actually enjoy during football season but find less interesting in the offseason (Sorry Tony and Mike!). So instead of watching TV, I started admiring my new arrangement. And then I noticed my other arrangement that I’d thrown together a while back on the other side of the room with additional flowers just waiting to be added. What better time than during PTI!?

My vase already consisted of these flowers…

… and these flowers…. err, branches….

… and the flowers on the right. But I wanted to add in the flowers on the left and a few more colorful sprigs of pink and purple flowers (kinda pictured below, and kinda pictured above).

The vase I wanted to use was a clearance score at Michaels. I paid less than $3 for this teal vase.

The vase is short and the mouth is narrow, but since the base is wide all of the flowers tend to lean to one side.

Much like the other arrangement, I started by cutting the ends of the wire off to shorten each stem. I did random lengths to not everything was the same height. To do so, I cut them with wire cutters/strippers. (Apparently, this might not be the appropriate tool to use since the top circles are used to strip the protective coating off of wire. But the bottom 3/4 inches are used for cutting wires, which the flowers are made of, so I stand by my choice! Plus, it was wayyyy easier than using traditional wire cutters. Ladies, if your hubby looks at you like you are crazy for using wire cutters, just ignore him :p)

Once all of the flowers were trimmed and re-trimmed, I started to assemble everything back in the vase. I ended up leaving out the accent branches — they have more of a fall color scheme to them anyway, so maybe I’ll be making seasonal arrangements later this year!

Unlike the other arrangement, I didn’t want to add filler to the vase, so the flowers had to stand on their own. When I had an arrangement that I liked, I gathered it up out of the vase and wrapped thread around the base where the lip of the vase would cover. This secured everything together, making the flowers stand tall instead of leaning to one side or the other.

Then, I filled in the opening of the vase with a few short, pink sprigs that weren’t tall enough for the arrangement. They add just a little more color and oomph to the arrangement.

As you can tell, I really like wispy arrangements.

This guy lives on the other side of the room on a game cabinet. It creates nice movement in the room because your eye is drawn from one arrangement to the other. I am thinking about moving the purple arrangement closer to our bar — the vase is filled with corks after all — and creating one more for the television cabinet. We’ll see.

Even though I love to garden outside, I am not very good at keeping things alive inside. These fake flowers are a great way to bring the feeling of the outdoors inside without having to remember to water them!

Interior Decorating

Pillow Talk

June 24, 2014June 23, 2014 Jessica Smith

I mentioned in my post yesterday that one of my areas of focus for my living room is adding punches of color. I have set my sights on finding the perfect pillows for my mint couch that aren’t just some shade of mint or gray. It’s been a challenge because the mint couch has a dingy gray tone to it that is incredibly noticeable when next to bright fabrics.

I spent some time in Photoshop to try to get a better feel for how some of these pillows will actually look against the couch. Here’s what I came up with:

Option 1 pulls in some navy, green and coral. I love the poppy pillow and I think it will look really nice with the mint and teal chevron pillows I already have on the couch. I also like that the base of the pillow is white, so they are bright. I love the navy pillows, but since I am trying to brighten the space I think I’ll stay away from these for now.

Option 2 is just the poppy pillow. It pulls out the grays in my other pillows and makes the poppy pillow the true statement on the couch.

Option 3 adds in a pillow with no mint or teal at all. *Gasp* And I like it! I like that both accent pillows have flowers, but not in the same way.

Here’s a bunch of the other pillows I “tried” on the couch. I love each of them, but not on the couch (and certainly not together). The pillow in the center is the one I was originally going to purchase, but once I “tried” it on the couch, I’m not so crazy about it anymore. Glad I pillow tested.

My last option is buying two of the poppy pillow. I think I’m going to buy just one first (it comes in many different sizes from this Etsy shop) to make sure I like it in person. If that works out, I might add additional pillows.

As silly as it seems, I actually think having the coral on the couch is going to change the room a lot. If I learned anything from my class, it’s that color can make or break a room. Time to get my colors just right!

Craft Projects, Wreath

Floral centerpiece

April 1, 2014March 30, 2014 Jessica Smith

The hubby gave me beautiful pink flowers recently that I happily placed on our crate coffee table in our family room. Now I am not a pink girl — not in the least bit. But the pop of pink against our gray walls and surrounded by the cool colors I tend to prefer, well, it just worked!

Once the flowers died I knew that I wanted to make a flower centerpiece for that room using the pinks that looked so great.

So this past weekend I spent and hour — AN HOUR — in Michaels flower section picking out just the right flowers. I am really picky when it comes to fake flowers. If they are trying to look real, but are so obviously fake, then I don’t want anything to do with them. So that leaves me with flowers that are pretty but obviously not real and then the really good imitation (read: really expensive) flowers.

For this arrangement, I opted for the most realistic flowers I could find. Thankfully the flowers were 40% off and I had a 20% off coupon, or my centerpiece would have cost $75 just for the flowers! Um, no thanks!

After carefully selecting the flowers I wanted and some floral foam, I rushed home to create my work of art. I used a gorgeous vase I bought last summer in Lancaster, Penn. When I saw the vase I knew I had to have it, even if I didn’t have an immediate use for it. I thought maybe I’d use it to hold kitchen utensils, but it didn’t looks so great with my green walls. So it’s been sitting in my basement for 8 months begging to be used.

I cut the floral foam to fit into the bottom of the vase, then started cutting the fake flowers to length and sticking them into the foam. After several different arrangements, I had something I was happy with (mostly). I took a couple of grocery store baggies and stuffed them into the base, then poured small rocks on top to hide the bags. This helps keep the flowers from shifting too much, allowing the centerpiece to keep its shape over time.

I think I’ll probably add in a few more flowers into the few gaps, but I love this so much I can’t even tell you. It makes me smile every time I walk by it. I can’t tell which I’m happier by — flowers year-round or the fact that I finally put my beautiful pottery to use. ❤ Love.

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