Fresh flowers decorate and perfume your home

Flowers have been used for centuries to decorate and perfume houses.
Bringing fresh cut flowers into your home adds colour and scent it is
true, but the flowers add an extra dimension that cannot be created
with soft furnishings and accessories – they bring with them a sense
of life and growth, making a room come alive. Think how welcoming
Flowers are when you find an elegant arrangement in a hotel lobby or
a simple posy on a restaurant table. Having fresh flowers in your home,
even if only at weekends or during holidays, will instantly cheer you,
your family and friends and make your home much more welcoming.

Each season brings a fresh range of flowers and foliage to used around
the house, and weather you wish to create a formal arrangement for a
celebration or simply add some fresh flowers to a room, there is always
something new to try. You can make the most of special features in any
room with a carefully chosen and arranged selection of flowers, empty
fireplaces, table tops bedside cabinets, vanity shelves in bathroom and
kitchen tables are all ideal places to feature an arrangement of coloreful
flowers.

There is a lot of mystique surrounding the skill of flower arranging, but
with practice, you will find that your eye soon develops so that you create
increasingly effective arrangements. Once you have chosen a group
of flowers and foliage that you think will go well together, consider where
the arrangement will be place and which container you plan to use.

It is then a matter of creating a shape that suits all three and that shows
off the flowers and foliage to their best advantage. Some people find
this a very simple process; others have to take their time and make what
they believe to be mistakes along the way.

Keep a record of arrangements that catch your eye and try to think why
they attract you, is it the choice of colours? The container? Or the particular
flowers that have been used? Dramatic arrangements in hotel lobbies, for example
are great inspiration for smaller scale arrangements in your own home.

Used books, magazines, fabrics, and gardens to give you ideas of colours
and shapes, too, but don’t be afraid to experiment, you will soon get to know
what works and what does not.