Flowers

Who doesn't love being given a bunch of flowers? It's such a lovely gesture and I'm not being ungrateful here but sometimes, you think I'm not really a yellow and orange coloured flower girl or I'm not a carnation girl. I'm not this or I'm not that but I think we all have our own personal preferences don't we? My personal preference is peonies, hydrangeas and I'm quite partial to parrot tulips too if anyone wants to buy me flowers ;o) Put it this way, the Grumps thinks twice before he comes home with a bunch of floribunda for me.
I was recently given a bunch with the following colours in. Crimson, orange, yellow, purple and fuchsia. Together, they were very colourful and to be honest, I struggled with how to arrange them as a collective bunch and then I hit on the brainwave of splitting them.
I extracted the carnations/dianthus and purple thistle and arranged them like this.

And they went on my kitchen window sill next to Snowy from Tin Tin.

I then separated the fuchsia gerberas and the peachy orange roses. And arranged them like so .....

.... before I took them round to a friend's as a quickie birthday present ;o) I was honest and fessed up to not buying the flowers and she was okay with that as it was a rather impromptu out of the blue invite.

And last but not least, I extracted the remaining yellow flowers (no idea of their name) along with some of the green foliage and arranged them like this ..... as I had no idea what to do with these :o(

And in a simple setting ... they don't look so bad. Just plain and clean.

So, together, they are not so hot but separated, I thought they looked the business and this way, you get three lots of flower arrangements.
Sometimes, you just need to think outside the box.

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Last Note :

• Carnations/dianthus generally get a bad rap. They tend to be cheap and cheerful, found on petrol station forecourts and generally thought of as a little boring. But buy yourself a bunch some time and try something like arranging a single carnation in a single bud vase. Put two or three of these together and suddenly we are talking something modern and funky instead of the usual carnation sprig in a vase on the table at the local curry house. Have a look at H&M homewares - they have some beautiful little vases there which I will be ordering.

Source (Pinterest)

• Or cluster them tightly together in a vase with a small opening so they fan out of the top like a little explosion.

Source (Pinterest)

• Strange but true. But my little instagram pic of my carnations has garnered the most likes ever in my Instagram history. Granted I don't have a huge following but I love that a little pot of much maligned flowers got so much love!