How To Make a Basic Dried Flower Arrangement

By MaryAnne Mathis

If you want a Class A decoration, do you need to have a Class A wallet (i.e., a wallet that's filled to the brim with cash)? Not necessarily.

As far as floral ornaments are concerned, there are more affordable and, consequently, better alternatives than using fresh and exquisite flowers.

One alternative is the use of dried flowers.

Dried flowers don't just come cheaper than their fresh counterparts-they're also more available (they don't have to be in season) and they last longer. What's more is that they are more flexible and easy to handle when you utilize them in floral arrangements.

Actually, the best part about dried flowers is how you can make them epitomes of beauty without a genius's know-how on floral arrangement.

These tips on dried flower arrangement can get you through any floral decorating endeavor:

• Your vase or basket of dried flowers will look excellent on a lazy susan. Easily use floral clay to fasten your vase basket onto the lazy susan. Arrange it such that you can turn it to view your arrangement from all sides.
• First establish the overall structure of the design using line materials and fillers like dried or preserved grasses, lavender, wheat or straw. Dried foliage like maidenhair fern, caspia gyp flax or galax leaves is best for filling the center.
• Large dried flowers like Hydrangeas and cockscomb should be inserted prior to medium-size flowers like dried roses and straw flowers. Space the flowers evenly.
• To accent the overall shape, add additional fillers like larkspur or delphinium. Ferns can be used to fill in empty spaces. To add volume and fullness, use dried flax.
• You can also opt to move a notch higher by using small trees with real branches for the trunk and cone-shaped dry foam for the tree. Line a container with slivers of floral foam, and then add a mixture of plaster of Paris. Insert the trunk such that it rests on the bottom of the pot and, when the plaster is dry, push the cone-shaped foam onto the trunk while covering it with moss. Ornament the tree by hot gluing dried flowers and leaves to the top of the moss. And voila! You have a dried tree!
  

Large scale and Class A floral arrangements need not be difficult to make and they are not expensive. With just a few stems of dried delphinium, preserved orchids and rose heads, a small piece of floral foam, a pot, moss and, most important, a wisp of creativity-you can come up with a striking dried flower arrangement.