Floristry Taster - Week 1

Anyone that's been following me since November will know about my sudden obsession with becoming a florist. No idea where the idea sprang from, but I've been planning my career change ever since. My first experience was at a fantastic Christmas workshop in Roots and Fruits, Glasgow. After making my own table centrepiece and a beautiful wreath I was bitten by the bug. Mr G signed me up for a 6 week taster course at Langside College that started on Tuesday night...

"Please bring a single flower, some foliage, a pair of scissors and some gyp if you so desire."

After many failed google attempts at 'gyp' I had to give in and ask my mum. It's short for gypsophila, commonly known as Baby's Breath - tiny little white flowers. So, I popped into a local florist after work on Tuesday and selected 2 beautiful lilac roses (a spare in case I made a mistake!), some eucalyptus leaves for foliage and some unidentified white flowers as they didn't have any gyp in stock. After a quick bite to eat I trotted up the road to the college with my rather small 'bouquet' and a pair of scissors in my bag.

Week 1 - A single flower arrangement

I know, it looks kinda basic. It IS basic, but we were taught a few important starting skills which we need to master before we go any further. Most importantly, the correct way to layer up stems and tie a nice strong knot (in the correct place) in order for us to produce larger bouquets in the future. We were also shown a few different ways to wrap the cellophane around. Again, pretty basic stuff, but the girl taught a few tricks of the trade which should help in the future if I'm going to be banging out 20 of these in one go.

After the cellophane came the trickiest part of all - the dreaded bow! There are 13 of us in the class. Every single one of us struggled. I came to the quick realisation that we all had the same problem - we only had two hands each. In order to hold the flowers, tie the knot, construct the bow and assemble everything together, you need an extra hand. I have searched on Ebay, but I haven't had any luck. If anyone would like to donate a 'spare hand' over the weekend, please get in touch at the usual address. I have been instructed to bring along a perfect bow to next Tuesday's class. Homework!!

I decided to release my beautiful roses from their, dare I say, slightly tacky, cellophane prison after I took the shot above. Here they are in all their glory:

On display alongside David LaChapelle's photo of the late, great Alexander McQueen and the equally late, great, Isabella Blow. Just in the background you'll catch a glimpse of digital artwork gifted to me by the Smu.