Once upon a time I was a florist. I studied floral design in Chicago, traveled to Europe to study design here, took a workshop in Covent Garden in London, and worked with some amazing floral designers in the States. It’s been a few years since I last worked with flowers professionally, but my love of floral design remains unchanged and whenever I can I love putting arraignments together.
I wanted to use very simple, rustic elements to adorn our advent candle-piece and so I bought some clementines for drying (recipe for drying clementines here), fir branches (I think it’s fir! It’s some kind of delicious smelling evergreen) from Aldi (this could, of course, be collected in your backyard if you have access to aromatic wintry trees), and gathered some of Esmé’s recently collected acorns and chestnuts. I also found a vintage red velvet ribbon which once belonged to Nik’s grandmother. It brought the whole thing together and added such a sweet element of nostalgia to the design.
The key to a good centrepieces is layering of the elements. Having 3-4 different textures is enough to make it feel complete. Of course you can always add more!
First I cut the branches into smaller pieces and arranged them in the candle-piece. Keeping the needles low enough that they won’t catch fire is important. Once the design was to my liking I added in the acorns and chestnuts, then the ribbon. I thought I might make bows out of the ribbon, but decided instead to simply strew it around the candles. I think it adds some lovely texture and colour. Lastly I carefully places a few dried clementine slices, and Voilà! The perfect simple advent centrepiece. Rustic, nostalgic, a bit Nutcracker, a bit Little House on the Prairie, just the way I like it! You could also add other sorts of evergreen texture, dried flowers (roses!), other dried citrus elements, little ornaments or figures, whatever you have on hand to make it your own!
Merryweather Living 