Simple Flower Arrangements

Featured Pro: Kristan Cunningham
Category: Home Décor
Time: 3:40


KRISTAN CUNNINGHAM: Hi, there. I’m Kristan Cunningham with a GMC Trade Secret that’ll help you brighten any room.

Flower arranging is an art. But if you don’t feel like you’ve got the touch or you don’t really have any skills, it can be a really daunting thing to take on. And it can get pretty expensive. One single hydrangea stem can run six to eight bucks.

So I like to stick with the really inexpensive flowers that you can get in bunches like these guys. Stick with one color and go with a really simple approach. The fancier you get, the more it’s going to feel like a funeral or a wedding centerpiece. So if you’re really looking for simple arrangements to put into your home, one color and one simple broad stroke is the way to go.

So this container, this bowl, sits on my coffee table every day, every week of the year, and each week it’s really just about whatever flowers at the grocery store that I like that time. But it’s nice, because I can keep it low and see the TV, which is very important.

So this time I found these guys. What I’m going to do is cut all their heads off. I’m cutting them pretty close to their heads because I don’t really want to see the stems. I just want the illusion that they’re floating; pretty low-floating heads.

So we could cut all of them. We could fill the whole thing. I kind of like to give them a little air space, let them all swing around, join one side if they want to. But it’s a really simple, really striking arrangement, and all we had to do was remove a few flower heads.

So this next one is all about a soft, pretty, floaty texture. I’m going to use these pretty guys. Again, I bought one bunch of something that’s similar; didn’t pay a lot. And if you were doing a vase, this wouldn’t go very far. But if we can separate them over a few containers and have the look be light and airy, it looks purposeful instead of like you skimped out and didn’t buy enough flowers. One long guy there, two short guys down here; maybe this guy here.

That was pretty haphazard how I did that, and it looks like an arrangement. It’s really about spreading these guys out so that they take on a little more height, a little more room. Vary the textures. Vary the heights. It becomes an arrangement.

Now, if you’re not doing bunches, if you want to spend a few dollars on a single stem or a branch, a kangaroo pot is a great option, because look how much space it takes up. And it’s this great head of color for a few bucks. But what takes it over the top is a gorgeous-colored vessel. The yellow with the teal is really stunning. So that’s your arrangement right there – super-simple.

So this arrangement is one of those things that, you know, I store away in my design file, and every once in a while I bring it out and I’m amazed every time at how impactful something this simple can be.

Calla lilies are so beautiful because they’re so graphic and the stem is so clean and simple. So what I’ve done is driven a nail up into the bottom of each stem to hold them down, and then attach them to the bottom of the vase with earthquake wax, because we don’t want to have any weights or anything showing. We want it to just be a flawless, simple design, because when we add water, you’re going to watch the flowers actually magnify before your eyes. They get, like, bigger once the water goes in. So gorgeous and so simple.

I’m Kristan Cunningham, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret about how to make simple flower arrangements.