Being alive in the year 2020 has been challenging to say the least. Sometimes, when there is so much negativity in the world, we forget that beautiful things still exist. And we can forget to look for those beautiful things and grab a hold of them. With spending more time in our homes these days, it’s more important, especially now, to bring beauty inside. And while I might be biased, I think everyone would agree that flowers are definitely beautiful. Flowers embody beauty, life, and joy – all things we could use a little more of right now.
I recently collaborated with Pacific Place on a virtual workshop all about stylish and creative ways to add flowers to your dining table. Each year Pacific Place hosts a Film Meets Fashion event celebrating Seattle’s fall fashion. While COVID-19 disrupted their plans for an in-person affair, Pacific Place still wanted to share the spirit of Film Meets Fashion. They created a lineup of uplifting and inspiring virtual workshops, by showcasing fashion inside the home.
Sharing these different tabletop flower ideas was so much fun! I hope this virtual workshop inspires you to create something beautiful for your dining table. Check out the full workshop in the video below. You can find more images of the four different floral styles I present further down on this blog post. Enjoy!
Flowers in Kitchenware Vessels
Vases come in all shapes and sizes, but at its core a vase is really just a water-tight container. So if you go into your kitchen and look around you’ll probably see a bunch of water-tight containers. And just like that you have an inventory of flower vases!
For this arrangement I chose to design in a cute little tea pot that had been a gift for my mom some time ago. I didn’t use any mechanics inside the teapot, as I didn’t want to scratch the inside finish. Isn’t this arrangement just the sweetest?!
Flowers in Food Containers
Another source of water-tight containers are food containers! Anything from a spaghetti jar to a yogurt container could be used as a vase. Before you throw that tomato can into the recycling bin why not give it yet another life, even temporarily, by putting flowers in it??
In this demonstration I made savory Italian-inspired floral arrangements in two spaghetti jars and one tomato can. The local dahlias I included were the perfect richness for these arrangements. Delicious!
Flower + Food Arrangements
Confession – I was most excited about creating a flower and food arrangement for the tabletop workshop. I had been dreaming about designing in a salad bowl for some time now, after gifting a beautiful salad bowl to a friend in honor of her marriage. And I’ve been on a fresh kale kick for several months and was admiring the shape and texture of the kale leaves, and thought how lovely they would be in a floral arrangement. So, creating a flower + food arrangement was perfect for this salad bowl!
Elevated Flowers
The final design idea I shared was elevating flowers off of the dining table. This is done all the time in the wedding and events world, but deciding on mechanics that would be relatively accessible and easy to replicate for the non professional Florist was something I had to really think through. I searched around and finally settled on some ceiling command hooks that I found on Amazon. They don’t take a lot of weight, but just enough to make a visual impact. Have fun with this one!
If you are inspired to try any of these arrangement styles I would love to see what you create. I will add your photo to this blog post and share on my Instagram account. You can contact me via email: holly@hollyyee.com or send me a DM to @hollyyeefloralarchitecture
I can’t wait to see what beautiful things YOU create!
