Creating Cohesive Tablescape Ideas with Flowers

by Kit Wertz

A tablescape is a term used to describe a cohe­sive col­lec­tion of objects and usu­al­ly some type of flo­ral ele­ment on a din­ing table, man­tle, side­board, night­stand or cof­fee table. I like to think of it as “land­scap­ing my table.” The word is used most often by event plan­ners and inte­ri­or design­ers to show off their knowl­edge of what goes well togeth­er. For a fun quick tuto­r­i­al on how to cre­ate a pro­fes­sion­al look­ing cof­fee table from a very lik­able design­er, check out this table­top tips video from Elaine Grif­fin of Home­Goods. I also enjoyed this blog entry on how to cre­ate dif­fer­ent tablescapes through­out the house like a pro from houzz.com.

Tablescape Guidelines for a Dinner Party

There are a few rules that can help you cre­ate a good-look­ing table for a din­ner par­ty where all the guests are seat­ed at the same long table.

• Make sure each guest is close enough to the dec­o­ra­tion that he or she can admire it or even touch it.
• Allow enough room on the table for all the chi­na, sil­ver­ware, glass­ware, bread bas­kets, but­ter dish­es and salt and pep­per shakers.
• Fol­low a cohe­sive col­or theme through­out the design, but don’t go over­board on col­or. Try to keep it to with­in three or four main colors.
• Vary the heights of the ele­ments on the table. It’s best not to have a flat table. This may end up being achieved by the dif­fer­ent glass­ware heights if many types of wine are being offered dur­ing the din­ner or lun­cheon. If not, it may be more inter­est­ing to add hur­ri­cane can­dles along the length of the table con­nect­ed by a table run­ner, green­ery and flower arrange­ments and even bas­kets of fruit. You could even add a few tall can­de­labras along the length of the table at dif­fer­ent heights.
• As with any din­ner par­ty, make sure the flow­ers you choose to design with do not have an over­whelm­ing scent. Save the Casa Blan­ca Lilies for the entry­way arrange­ment and stick to non-fra­grant flow­ers on the table.
• Keep in mind that dark flow­ers often get lost in a dark din­ing room. So, think about light­ing them from above if the client is insis­tent on a dark or jew­el-toned theme for a night­time event.

Steps to a Great Tabletop

1. Start with know­ing the size of the table. If it’s long and nar­row, make the flower centerpiece(s) long and narrow.

2. Add a run­ner that is neu­tral or com­ple­ments the theme — whether it be the flow­ers or nap­kins or place set­ting. If you are work­ing with a round table, you could add square nap­kins to the mid­dle of the table under the cen­ter­piece to add some color.
3. Depth on the table can be achieved with green­ery and berries.

4.Gain warmth with pil­lar can­dles in cylin­der vas­es or hur­ri­cane lamps if the table is long. Add votives around a round cen­ter­piece for a round table.
5.Add dif­fer­ent ele­ments to the table that reflect the sea­son or the theme. If this is a beach par­ty, add some seashells. For Thanks­giv­ing, add acorns or mini pump­kins. If it’s Christ­mas, add pinecones, hol­ly and red berries.
6.Use table­ware that match­es the mood of the par­ty. Use fine chi­na and crys­tal for a for­mal din­ner par­ty and opt for dis­pos­able bam­boo plates and mason jars for a casu­al back­yard sum­mer dinner.

Flowers as Tablescapes

As flo­ral design­ers for wed­dings and events, we spe­cial­ize in the flow­ers on the table. Many times the event plan­ner and bride get togeth­er on the oth­er items that end up on a table. These usu­al­ly include wed­ding favors, pho­tos of the bride and groom in exot­ic places they’ve vis­it­ed before get­ting mar­ried, votive can­dles and the occa­sion­al col­lec­tion of rose petals.

Hydrangea and Orchid Tabletop

Oth­er flo­ral tablescapes can be the entire cen­ter­piece as we did for a wed­ding in the cel­lar room of the St. Reg­is Monarch Beach this past sum­mer. We used box­wood, hydrangea (in water vials) and orchids for this design. Can­dles at dif­fer­ent heights along the table would have been a wel­come addi­tion to this design but were not request­ed by the bride.

Peacock Themed Tabletop

Last month we cre­at­ed flo­ral designs for an inti­mate lun­cheon and the col­or theme focused on pea­cock feath­ers. Since there were 17 guests seat­ed around a long, nar­row table, we sug­gest­ed three low and long flo­ral designs so that each guest would be able to enjoy the flow­ers. The guest of hon­or sat in the mid­dle of the table, so she had the best view of the mid­dle arrangement.

As you can see, the turquoise nap­kins brought out the turquoise in the pea­cock feath­ers in the flo­ral designs. The client added her own par­ty favors for each guest which were gold and turquoise wrapped notepads with pea­cocks on them. We used flow­ers that brought out the col­ors of the pea­cock feath­ers – dark pur­ple Hydrangea, dark pur­ple Tra­che­li­um, Bru­nia berries, seed­ed Euca­lyp­tus, dark pink Spray Ros­es, sil­very Suc­cu­lent Rosettes and magen­ta Hang­ing Amaranthus.

Fall 2012 Colors for Entertaining

If you want some new inspi­ra­tion for your Thanks­giv­ing table and don’t want to go with the usu­al orange and brown look, check out the Pan­tone col­ors for fall 2012 and our Flower Duet Fall 2012 Dec­o­rat­ing Col­ors Pin­ter­est board which we cre­at­ed for ideas on what to use as part of a cohe­sive theme using this fall’s col­ors. I love the fact that the col­ors in pea­cock feath­ers are includ­ed in the fall col­ors and you can guess that’s why Pier1 fea­tured so many pea­cock-themed dec­o­ra­tive items this fall.

Here are some flower ideas you can use that encom­pass the fall colors:

Brown and Pink Floral Color Theme

Fall 2012 Col­ors: French Roast, Tita­ni­um, and Pink Flambé
Flow­ers used include Hot Princess Ros­es with Galax leaves glued to the con­tain­er for the dark browns and touch­es of sil­ver tita­ni­um are found in the suc­cu­lent rosettes and dusty miller greenery.

Brown, Gold and Green Flowers

To get a brown flower any time of year, just pick off the yel­low petals from a sun­flower and you have a love­ly brown cen­ter left. In the fall, you can find gold­en ama­ran­thus which is beau­ti­ful and isn’t avail­able any oth­er time of year. Tie this togeth­er with some bright green ama­ran­thus or green Ker­mit mums and you have a love­ly earthy com­bi­na­tion for fall.

Chartreuse, Lavender and Rose Colored Flowers

Char­treuse flow­ers are hard to come by, but you can find them in these buds from the Star of Beth­le­hem flow­ers which are com­bined with laven­der spray mums and mauve col­ored roses.

Silver and Tangerine Colored Flowers

Peach Finesse gar­den ros­es have an orange look and can be used to mim­ic the 2012 col­or of the year “Tan­ger­ine Tan­go.” These look great paired with sil­ver flow­ers like Scabiosa pods and Dusty Miller.

Hot Pink, Silver and Rose Colored Flowers

Fall 2012 Col­ors: Tita­ni­um and Pink Flam­bé and Rose Smoke Berzil­la berries, magen­ta hydrangea and mauve ros­es make this fall 2012 com­bi­na­tion entic­ing on the din­ing table.

Brown and Tangerine Orange Flowers for Thanksgiving Flowers

Fall 2012 Col­ors: French Roast and Tan­ger­ine Tango
An orange and cream-col­ored mini pump­kin is the main focus in this flo­ral design for Thanks­giv­ing. Since it uses ele­ments of dark wood as the con­trast­ing accent, it falls in per­fect­ly with any fall dec­o­rat­ing theme.

Flower Duet’s 2013 Floral Design Workshop Calendar

by Kit Wertz

South Bay Design Studio, Los Angeles Flower Mart Tours, Huntington Library Art of Floral Design Classes

Flower Duet offers a vari­ety of ser­vices includ­ing cus­tom flo­ral designs for wed­dings, cor­po­rate events, birth­day par­ties, Bat Mitz­vahs and Bar Mitz­vahs, retire­ments, sym­pa­thy designs, hotel instal­la­tions, restau­rant instal­la­tions and more! We also teach flower arrang­ing at our design stu­dio in the South Bay of Los Ange­les and at The Hunt­ing­ton Library in San Mari­no. We offer cus­tom pri­vate lessons, flower arrang­ing par­ties, work­shops and flower tours through­out the year. Each class, work­shop, par­ty and les­son reflects sea­son­al flow­ers and the cur­rent hot flo­ral design trend.

We Love Our Floral Design Students

We have a wide vari­ety of stu­dents who attend our class­es. Many of them are wed­ding plan­ners who want to learn the basics of flo­ral design just in case they need to fix a cen­ter­piece or bou­ton­niere dur­ing a wed­ding. We also have a lot of bud­ding flo­ral entre­pre­neurs, many of whom just bought a flo­ral shop and then real­ize, they need to learn the ropes — and quick­ly! For these stu­dents, we offer a cus­tom set of class­es which accom­mo­dates each stu­den­t’s indi­vid­ual needs.

2013 Class Sched­ule for Flower Duet’s Design Stu­dio and Show­room, Tor­rance, Calif.
All class­es fol­low option­al tours of the Los Ange­les Flo­ral Dis­trict on Sat­ur­day morn­ings. Tours take place in down­town LA from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and work­shops are held from 10 a.m. to Noon.

Learn more and reserve your spot in a work­shop at our Tor­rance, Cal­i­for­nia flo­ral design studio. 

Jan­u­ary 19, 2013
Win­ter White Using Trop­i­cal and Tra­di­tion­al Flowers
Flower Duet will show stu­dents how to achieve an ele­gant white bou­quet to bright­en up the Jan­u­ary home by com­bin­ing tra­di­tion­al flow­ers like calla lilies and trop­i­cal flow­ers such as orchids.

Feb­ru­ary 23, 2013
Wed­ding Workshop
Stu­dents will learn to cre­ate a hand-tied wed­ding bou­quet and bou­ton­niere in this wed­ding-trend focused work­shop. Flower Duet will cov­er rib­bon tech­niques and how to make flow­ers last a long time when out of water for the big wed­ding day.

March 23, 2013
Large Scale Flo­ral Design
Using sea­son­al ele­ments such as branch­es and flow­ers, Flower Duet will show stu­dents how to cre­ate a 4ft tall design that would work well on a bar or in an entry­way. Stu­dents will learn how to force flow­er­ing branch­es to open, how to arrange them in a vase and how to use the prop­er pro­por­tion for each ele­ment in the larg­er vase size.

April 13, 2013
Loose Hand-tied Bouquet
Stu­dents will get a fresh take on this tra­di­tion­al look and learn which flow­ers to choose for a design like this, how to con­di­tion the flow­ers to last a long time, which flow­ers to use in the design first and how to ensure the blooms look orga­nized, yet flowing.

May 11, 2013
Moth­er and Daugh­ter Class for two $150
Spend the morn­ing with your daugh­ter on Sat­ur­day before Mother’s day putting togeth­er two designs: One in a cute moss-cov­ered hand­bag and the oth­er in a com­pli­men­ta­ry vase design. Light refresh­ments served.

May 18, 2013
Mono­chro­mat­ic May Flo­ral Centerpiece
Stu­dents will cre­ate a low cen­ter­piece in a 6‑inch glass cube vase in the pavé style. Flow­ers will be sim­i­lar in col­or but var­ied in tex­ture to add inter­est to the design.

June 8, 2013
Per­fect Peonies
Learn to cre­ate an ele­gant bou­quet while bal­anc­ing large blooms like Peonies with small­er accent flow­ers and very lit­tle greenery.

July 20, 2013
Hydrangea Gar­den Par­ty Bouquet
Learn how to design with Hydrangea, keep it last­ing a long time in a vase, how to revive Hydrangea that are wilt­ed and which flow­ers to use in a com­po­si­tion bou­quet for a gar­den par­ty look.

August 17, 2013
Sump­tu­ous Gar­den Roses
Flower Duet takes on pop­u­lar Gar­den Ros­es in this work­shop for all lovers of ros­es and per­haps a few brides-to-be. This flower is read­i­ly avail­able in late sum­mer, but still offers many chal­lenges to the flower arranger.

Sep­tem­ber 21, 2013
Dar­ing Dahlias
Fall Dahlias come in so many amaz­ing col­ors, tex­tures, and sizes, but offer some prob­lems to the would-be flo­ral design­er. Come to our work­shop on Dahlias and learn the tricks of the trade.

Octo­ber 19, 2013
Event Design Work­shop on How to Tablescape
Whether you are design­ing for a large scale head table at a wed­ding, small brunch or a cozy din­ner par­ty, we’ll give you tips on how best to com­bine flow­ers and green­ery with oth­er ele­ments to set the right mood for the cel­e­bra­tion. You’ll go home with a piece of the tablescape that you created.

Novem­ber 16, 2013
Gild­ing for the Holidays
After a quick tuto­r­i­al on how to guild fake gourds and pump­kins, Flower Duet will guide you through a hand-tied bou­quet that can be adapt­ed for a fes­tive tablescape.

Novem­ber 26, 2013
Thanks­giv­ing Din­ner Centerpiece
Join Flower Duet for a hol­i­day class cre­at­ing a sea­son­al cen­ter­piece arrange­ment for your Thanks­giv­ing table that com­bines fruit, veg­eta­bles and flow­ers in the design.

Decem­ber 7, 2013 morning
Make Your Own Wreath
Mix and match ever­greens with oth­er Cal­i­for­nia green­ery to cre­ate a full and unique hol­i­day wreath from scratch using a wire wreath form and lots of var­ied greens we only see dur­ing the hol­i­day season.

Decem­ber 7, 2013 afternoon
Spe­cial Occa­sion Hol­i­day Centerpiece
Cre­ate a flo­ral design using ever­greens and flow­ers in flo­ral foam suit­able for a hol­i­day table. We’ll also show you how to add accent pieces to a buf­fet or din­ing table to com­ple­ment the design.

Watch a FREE Video from Casey of Flower Duet — Winter White Tropical Flowers

Casey Schwartz of Flower Duet has appeared on Pub­lic Tele­vi­sion’sCre­ative Liv­ing with Sheryl Bor­den the past two sea­sons and returned to Por­tales, New Mex­i­co to film anoth­er set of five shows for the 2012–2013 season.

This month, we fea­ture a video on how to com­bine trop­i­cal flow­ers with tra­di­tion­al flow­ers for an ele­gant win­ter bouquet.

Sub­scribe to our YouTube chan­nel: fash­ion­ingflow­ers so you’ll know when we’ve uploaded a new show of our own!

Floral Design Book Reviews: Beautiful Winter

Beau­ti­ful Win­ter by Edle Catha­ri­na Norman

This book just came out last month and to be hon­est, we have not had a chance to review it yet in per­son; how­ev­er, the sneak peek looks amazing!

Here is a snip­pet from Amazon.com: “As autumn turns to win­ter, why not bring a touch of nature indoors by cre­at­ing a charm­ing bark wreath burst­ing with red ros­es or a twig globe entwined with del­i­cate amaryl­lis? In Beau­ti­ful Win­ter, author and florist Edle Catha­ri­na Nor­man shows how to use sea­son­al mate­ri­als and flow­ers to put togeth­er 53 entranc­ing and easy to assem­ble home projects.”

Floral Design Tool: Metallic Paint for Flower Designs

This hol­i­day sea­son is all about metallics. Last month, for our flo­ral design tool, we talked abouthow to make your own Mer­cury Glass vas­es. This month, we cov­er the metal­lic paints that are spe­cial­ly made for the florist.DESIGN MASTER PAINTS offers sev­er­al series of Metal­lic Col­or Sprays, each hav­ing unique prop­er­ties for their func­tion and fin­ish. All are fast-dry­ing and can be recoat­ed at any time. This type of paint can be used on dried green­ery like seed­ed euca­lyp­tus, mag­no­lia leaves, and hol­ly. It can also be used on about any type of con­tain­er so you can real­ly “class-up” a plas­tic con­tain­er with a lit­tle paint!

Use Metal­lic Paint on these surfaces:

• con­crete
• dried flow­ers
• fab­rics
• foam board
• gift wrap
• glass
• met­als
• paper crafts
• papi­er mache
• plas­ter
• plas­tic
• pot­tery
• rib­bon
• silk flow­ers
• stone
• ter­ra cotta
• wick­er­wood