Four Ways to Style Wildflowers

Is there anything prettier than a freshly-picked bunch of wildflowers in Spring? I've always been a fan of the untamed sprigs and blooms that pop up at this time of year, so today I thought I would share some of my top tips for styling a few of this season's offerings!  

Plus, as it's Mother's Day this Sunday, what better time could there be to brush up on your flower-arranging skills? In my opinion, big fancy bouquets are a bit overrated at this time of year- so why not take advantage of the abundance of pretty sprigs popping up outside and create your own little posies to dot around your Mum's house?  

The beautifully fresh blooms I've used for this post are from bloomandwild.com (as our garden is made up of more mud than wildflowers at the moment) but, if you have a good selection of flowers at your disposable then you can easily recreate these looks in a flash.

Some top tips before we get started:

* Begin by spreading your bunch out on a flat surface to get a good idea of what sort of lengths, textures and colours you have to work with.
* Cut the stems at an angle and remove any extra leaves or twiggy bits that might get drenched under water.
* When selecting and arranging your blooms, remember that nothing is final! You can fiddle around and adjust as much as you like- just trust your eye and have fun with it!    
* A good rule of thumb (if you need a little help) for grouping flowers together is to start with a green base, choose some focal flowers for a pop of colour, add some 'secondary' flowers and finish with some 'fillers' to flesh out your bunch.
* For a wild look, be sure to pull the flowers slightly away from one another to create a more natural overall shape.
* Work with the natural curve of each stem in order to create a well-structured look.    
* Have some twine and a pair of scissors at the ready for organising your bunches.
* + Finally, these little posies would work well in teeny-tiny vases but if you, like me, want to fill a jam jar or two, try using some Baby's Breath (Gypsophila, if you're fancy) to bulk out your bunches. It's super-duper cheap to buy (around £2 a bunch from Tesco) and just a few pretty stems go a long way in shaping-up your look.      

Here, I've spread the flowers out on the table to have a butchers at what Bloom & Wild have sent me. The flowers came wrapped in this soft tissue material, which was actually really handy to use as a surface for arranging the stems! As you can see, my box of flowers came with plenty of greens as well as a really sweet and colourful mix of Springtime blooms. I had a little fiddle around with stems at my disposal and eventually came up with four different bunches for each of my four containers.    

Bloom & Wild recommend you tie your posies together before plonking them in the vase of your choice, so I made sure I had some twine on hand to wrap round each bunch when I was happy with the arrangement. Creating little hand-tied bunches was quite fiddly to achieve (I felt like I needed three hands!) so I would recommend taking your time here and trying not to get too worked up if your arrangement jiggles about a bit- it's meant to look wild after all!  

Now it was time to match my posies to their containers...

1. Mini Milk bottle

I'm still absolutely in love with the selection of glass milk bottles I bought for last year's Summer Picnic Party- not only do they make the cutest alternative to glasses and cups at parties, but they also serve a double purpose as the most perfectly-sized mini vases!

This little posy was a lot thinner and taller than my other three creations, so it was a perfect fit for this narrow milk bottle. I ended up filling out and propping the bunch up with some Baby's Breath, as it was a little bit weedy just by itself, and then I flared out some of the greenery around the lip of the bottle in order to balance the whole look out.

2. Little Porcelain Jug

You can't get a more country-chic mix than wildflowers and vintage china! When I was rooting around our cupboards for some vase inspiration, I stumbled across this tiny milk jug and knew straight away that it would look so pretty filled with a little bunch of Spring flowers.

I kept this posy quite fat and short in order to compliment the round shape of the jug and not draw the eye too far away from its gorgeous blue design! Again, I chose to bulk out the posy with a couple of sprigs of Baby's Breath in order to give the overall look a more soft and natural shape.

3. Old Jam Jar

I love a good jam jar... there's nothing that reminds me of Spring more than recycling old jars to use as pots for plants or containers for foraging fruit!

This bunch needed a good deal of propping up, so again I went in with some good ol' Baby's Breath. Once I'd got the shape I was after, I spent some time teasing out the flower heads from behind all the spindly greenery in order to get a more natural, 'meadow-y' look. I love the way you can see all the freshly-cut stems at the bottom of the glass!

4. Re-used Tin Can

My final look involved a container that I would never usually consider using a vase- an old soup tin! However, once I'd peeled off the label and popped a bit of twine around the middle, I was quite pleased with the rustic-y charm of my newfound vase!

This bunch was the trickiest to arrange because, as the tin was quite large in comparison to my other containers, I'd opted to save the biggest posy until last and had, therefore, created a bunch that was quite flower-heavy! A few of the thicker stems kept twisting round eachother, battling it out for the limelight, so I did have to cut a couple of them down a bit in order to stop everything looking too overcrowded. I'm actually quite happy with the end result but I think it could benefit from a bit more height... perhaps I could add some more Baby's Breath?!?!

I hope I've inspired you to get out there in the garden and start twiddling together your own mini wildflower posies! I certainly can't wait to see my Mum's reaction when she spots these little bunches dotted around the house...

What are your plans for this Mother's Day? Do you have any little traditions or activities that you love to spoil your Mum with? I'd love to hear all about them in the comments below!


In the meantime,
All the love,

Siân x