Fabulous Fall DIY Arrangement Video Tutorial

October 22, 2024/Fabulous Florals

Thank you Alicia Schwede | Flirty Fleurs for incorporating florals from our fall collection with your artistic vision to create a unique and stunning DIY fall centerpiece.

A full transcript of the video follows for those of you who like to have written instructions. Following the transcript is a complete materials list with links to the individual products should you desire to place an order for your DIY fall centerpiece or arrangement.

Transcript

Hey, everybody. Alicia here. Thank you so much for joining me on this Friday afternoon. I am here at my studio in Snohomish, Washington, and I’m so happy to be bringing this live to you today. I am going to be demonstrating how to arrange flowers in this wonderful pumpkin right here.

I am so thankful for these beautiful flowers that arrived yesterday from my friends at Fabulous Florals. Fabulous Florals can be found online at fabulousflorals.com. They are a sister company to Florabundance Wholesale. Now, if you’re in the industry, you’ve probably heard of Florabundance Wholesale. It has been a wonderful company located in Southern California, just outside of Santa Barbara in the beautiful town of Carpinteria.

Florabundance is located there, and they have a sister company called Fabulous Florals, which provides florals to anyone in the US. You can go on the website and place an order to have flowers shipped directly to your door. You do not have to be a florist. You can be someone who just wants to make one arrangement for Thanksgiving.

Again, fabulousflorals.com is where these flowers came from. So let me tell you what florals we have here to work with today. Check out these orange aurelia spray roses. Are they gorgeous or what?

They’re like the perfect pumpkin spice orange—kinda orangey-golden spray rose. So I have these. I’ll set them aside. I have some of this bronzy amaranth. I always like a little texture in my fall arrangements.

Isn’t that the wonderful thing about fall? You get all these fun textures. So we have a little bit of that bronze amaranth.

Alstroemeria. I know probably a lot of people don’t grab it anymore. I think maybe we saw it at grocery stores for a little too long, and we’ve forgotten what a wonderful flower this really is to work with. I really enjoy alstroemeria this time of year. I love it in the fall because it comes in peaches, oranges, and even dark orange, reds, and burgundy. So definitely think about getting some alstroemeria for your arrangement. It’s super long-lasting and looks wonderful paired with roses and all the other fun textures.

I also have persimmons on the branch. So fun. So cool. A personal favorite, actually. Check these out.

Oh my gosh, you guys. Seriously? These are butterfly ranunculus. I have not seen this color before today. I’ve worked with the peaches and the pinks and all that, but seriously, how beautiful is this lavender-purple, almost wine-colored, butterfly ranunculus?

So pretty, right? And check out these. These are garden roses called Symbol.

They look absolutely awesome with these butterfly ranunculus, right? Like, how pretty is that? Symbol is grown by one of my personal favorite farms, Alexandra Roses. And, obviously, everyone at Fabulous Florals and Florabundance knows how much I love Alexandra Roses, so they included these beauties.

Again, this is Symbol. Symbol is the name of this rose. So I’m just going to put my ranunculus and Symbol roses back into this bucket of fresh water here. Behind me, I have some ninebark and some burgundy grasses that I can work with too. Okay, let’s get into our arrangement.

I have my little lazy Susan ready to go and my pumpkin here. Now, the flowers arrived yesterday at my door. When they got here, I processed them all, put them in fresh water, and set them aside to start hydrating. I always like to let my flowers hydrate for at least 2 to 3 hours, and in this case, they rehydrated overnight.

Last night, I started on my pumpkin. I went ahead and used a fresh pumpkin with an awesome color. I scraped it all out and got it clean. Here’s a tip you may not be familiar with: I like to spray the entire inside of my pumpkin and even wipe down the outside with Pam cooking spray.

The reason I spray all of this with Pam cooking spray (and you can use any type of cooking spray—olive oil, canola oil, whatever) is to add a protective cover to the pumpkin that slows down natural decay. By putting the oil on it, it blocks mold and bacteria from breaking it down too quickly. So I highly recommend carving out your pumpkin, spraying it with Pam or whatever cooking spray you have, and letting it settle before starting your project.

Now, for the mechanics. A lot of people put a vase inside the pumpkin or use floral foam. I personally like to use natural curly willow. Fabulous Florals sent me curly willow in my package yesterday, and I already trimmed it down a little bit.

What I love about using curly willow is that it’s a natural material. Once I’m done with this arrangement—after it fades or after my dinner party—I can put the whole thing in the compost without having to take it apart to fish out a vase or chicken wire. Chicken wire is great, but once your arrangement is done, you have to take it all apart to get the chicken wire out, so you can put the rest in the compost. To avoid that and keep it natural, I use curly willow.

It makes a fantastic grid inside. You’re just going to take it, weave it around, and place it sideways inside the pumpkin, working it in. A few pieces of curly willow create a natural grid to make arranging the flowers easier. As you add in your stems of flowers and foliage, they’ll lock right in place. I don’t mind if a piece or two of curly willow comes out; it’s kind of fun anyway. I’ll put the rest of it aside.

Now that I have the curly willow in, next, just add water. Floral Design 101—add water. I get asked all the time in classes, “When do I add water?” You put the water in before the flowers.

Now that we’re ready and the mechanics are in place, I’m going to start with some foliage. Let’s get these ninebark stems over here. Beautiful burgundy color. I hold it up to the pumpkin to see how long I want the stems, then give it a cut. Remember, no foliage in the water!

Keeping the water clean helps with the longevity of the pumpkin, and too many leaves make it difficult to add more flowers. I hold the stem up, cut it at a 45-degree angle to expose more stem for water absorption, and pop it in. Ninebark is awesome to work with. I use it all the time. It comes in this beautiful burgundy color and a fantastic chartreuse green.

I always start with my foliage to build the base of the arrangement. This is such a fun arrangement to do this time of year. It’s great for Halloween, Thanksgiving tables, and entry tables—really just a fun look for October and November.

Now we have a nice amount of ninebark in here. Next up are these awesome persimmon branches. I’m happy they were shipped with the leaves on, as I feel it protects the fruit a bit. However, if you don’t care for the look of the leaves, you can absolutely trim them off. I’m from Northern California, where we had persimmon trees everywhere, so it’s really awesome to work with these. They remind me of home.

Trim the branches, and since they’re heavy, I weave them between the ninebark to take some of the weight. Trim the leaves off if you don’t care for them, or keep them on for fun flair.

Now let’s add the copper-toned amaranth. I want this to cascade over the side of the pumpkin, which is the perfect look for a pumpkin arrangement. It adds a fun texture. This particular copper color is great for this time of year.

I’m just adding touches of it for texture, making sure it’s spread throughout. Now let’s add some color! These spray roses are just beautiful. I’m picking off any guard petals that might have gotten discolored while traveling.

This is really going to add some beautiful color. One stem in, and it’s already got a pop of color. So pretty. You can order from Fabulous Florals and have these gorgeous flowers delivered to your door. This is the perfect time of year for that—people want to do some home entertaining and make arrangements themselves. It’s so easy.

Now let’s add some of these gorgeous Symbol roses. They’re so rich and will look beautiful with this foliage. These garden roses from Alexandra Farms are long-lasting, and they’ll continue to open over time.

Now we have a dark foliage base, and we’re adding in brighter colored flowers to bring it all to life. It’s just so pretty! My butterfly ranunculus are trying to jump in already. I love layering different colors, and you can order the same flowers we’re using here. Personally, roses are still one of my absolute favorite flowers. They come in so many colors, are long-lasting, and are just beautiful.

Let’s add in some more roses and the alstroemeria. The foliage of the ninebark is dark, and the alstroemeria blooms add more greenery, which frames the flowers and adds depth. I really think everyone should try using alstroemeria this time of year. People have gotten away from it, but the colors they offer and the longevity are so worth it.

This particular arrangement will last me quite a few days. I’m just popping these stems throughout. Now it’s time to add the butterfly ranunculus—another long-lasting flower. It looks so perfect with the roses and greenery, and the pumpkin color is just perfect with all of this.

I’ll take some photos and share them online, and I’ll include a list of the flowers so you can recreate this design at home. This is just delightful. I’ve been designing flowers for about 25 years, and I’m still amazed by the beauty when unpacking a box and seeing what’s inside. I never get tired of it. To this day, this is the first time I’ve seen this particular color of butterfly ranunculus in person, and it’s just so pretty.

Now for the grasses behind me. They surprised me with these fun grasses, which will give the arrangement more dimension. You get about 10 to 12 stems per bunch, so you can make multiple arrangements or spread them out across your house for parties.

Grasses like these are so cool. I like to group them in clusters of 3 and weave them down into the arrangement. The curly willow is holding everything perfectly in place. Using curly willow as your mechanic inside the pumpkin keeps your stems in place, and you’ll thank me at the end of your party when you don’t have to fish out any mechanics from a pumpkin that’s ready for the compost.

I also have some cute little textures I’ll add in. This has been so much fun! Thank you so much for joining me. Again, all of these flowers came from fabulousflorals.com. I ordered the spray roses and curly willow, and they picked out these other beautiful Symbol roses to go with them.

They ship from Carpinteria, California, near Santa Barbara, and they’ll deliver anywhere in the US. These flowers arrived yesterday afternoon here in Washington, rehydrated overnight, and are very happy right now. The curly willow is inside the pumpkin as the mechanic holding everything in place.

Here’s my fun little festive holiday arrangement. I might add some more roses because I love them, but for now, this is it.

Thank you so much for joining me and thank you to everyone at Fabulous Florals and Florabundance Wholesale for helping with this fun project. Enjoy your weekend. Bye.