Fun with Flowers

Well . . . I haven't had consistent internet for weeks and this morning it's working.  So coupled with inspiration to finally write something on my blog again here I am . . .

In the last few years I've become very interested in flower arranging.  I've always been kind of an artistic person.  I love to dance, play music, draw, decorate and cook . . . while I'm not fabulous at any of these things I guess I consider myself artistic.  The latest venture in all of these things has been flower arranging.  My mother and my grandmother are definitely the inspiration for me flower arranging.  My. grandmother was a flower show judge and arranged flowers for her church altar until a few years ago.  My mother picked up flower arranging around that time and has been very active arranging flowers with her church.  She even went to the National Cathedral for a week and took a flower arranging for the altar class.

So . . . it's only natural that I would pick up this tradition from the women in my family.  I've taken a few workshops and made arrangements at the workshops but last Sunday was my first official arrangement for my church.  I'm not going to lie, I was pretty nervous about it.  I had a dream that I was grocery shopping instead of making my flower arrangement.  In the dream I knew I was supposed to be at church and I was trying to leave the grocery store but everything was moving in slow motion.  On top of that I still hadn't bought the flowers and I was at a grocery store that didn't have flowers.  Well of course out of my anxiety filled dream everything ended up being fine.  I bought flowers from the grocery store the Friday night so I could make my arrangement on Saturday.  I bought some beautiful sunflowers and hot pink carnations from the Safeway near our house.  (I don't think all Safeways have nice flowers but ours definitely does.  I'm always impressed with their flowers.)  To supplement the sunflowers and carnations I cut some giant hosta leaves from my back yard.

Here is a picture of the arrangment I made for the altar:

This picture is the arrangement I made for the narthex:

I didn't get too many comments about the flowers but lots of people were impressed that I had hostas.  Most people in our area can't grow hostas because the deer eat them.  Our yard is tiny and has a big fence around it so the deer can't get in and eat them.  There are a ton of people on the flower committee at my church so I won't be making another arrangement for a while but maybe I'll have to come up with another excuse to have fun with flowers.