Uplifting Spring Flowers

There is nothing quite like spring flowers to brighten your mood after a dark and cold winter. After a dark and cold winter in lockdown and a year that has been challenging like no other, it is the simple things that we add to our homes that bring comfort and joy.

We have been paying more and more attention to our homes and how we create havens in which to retreat. We know of the benefits of food, mindfulness, and exercise on our health, but many are now realizing that a homely sanctuary can also have benefits to our wellbeing, something I have long since advocated.

The Biophilic concept has been adapted for a while now. You can read more about it here and my take on it here and here. Essentially it is about bringing nature into our homes, so we feel more balanced, less stressed, and more connected with the natural world. There is nothing that says “nature” more than beautiful flowers and foliage.

I regularly use flowers on special occasions to add features to my home - it may be a fragrant Christmas or Easter mantel or table, or a wreath for my door. I have been known to create floral arrangements hanging from my ceiling known as “flower clouds”. The enjoyment and “brain off” time I get from creating something is often as beneficial as the beautiful flowers themselves. Sometimes, simply waking up to a beautiful bunch of flowers is enough to lift the spirits.

My “go-to” place for buying flowers is Triangle Nursery where you can buy wholesale amounts of flowers directly from their website. This is great if you want to create large features in your home but what happens if you just want something small, a treat. The Triangle Nursery team has recognized this and now supplies mixed boxes and kits on their website. The kits are great if you are a beginner as they supply all the materials-I recently bought a spring wreath kit for my mum.

The mixed boxes are ideal if you want flowers or foliage to style yourself, something I do often as I have most of the kit I need.

The team at Triangle Nursery asked me to create something utilizing their flowers for Spring. Naturally, I needed no persuasion to spend a good few hours on Pinterest looking for ideas and decided to go with a table design for Easter and to create a Pampas cloud to hang above it. You can see some of my inspiration here and here.

There are many ways to create flower clouds, but one utilizing pampas grass is perhaps the simplest. Moreover, dried flowers and grasses are having something of a comeback, and this is a great way of creating a feature in your home.

I created my flower cloud-first, largely because you can see it is a bit of a messy job and you do not want a beautifully styled table covered in green foam and fluff from the grasses. My next step was to create different arrangements for my flowers. I have listed the flowers in detail at the end of this post.

The first item I created was a wreath. This can be used on a table, perhaps with a candle in the middle, or it can provide a pop of color for your front door. You need a piece of green florist foam and a green tray to capture the water. I used a round piece for this wreath with a hole in the middle but you can style flowers in blocks or balls too. The process is the same.

Soak the foam in water until all the air bubbles have escaped. I typically just lie the foam on the top of the water and let it sink down. With a set of secateurs, I set about cutting the flowers and foliage. You do not need a large amount of foliage for the wreath as you can cut a single piece into smaller pieces which are perfectly fine to create the wreath with. Cut the stems at an angle so they are easier to insert into the foam and simply work your way around the foam until the greenery has covered the foam entirely.

I then chose to add some structural pieces-blue eryngium and white gypsophila which give a lovely vintage look.

Finally, intersperse you feature flowers in a color of your choosing. Roses are good flowers to use as are anemones in spring. These flowers create a visual impact on the wreath.

I made these Easter eggs with a set of plastic white eggs and some water and nail polish. Fill a tray with warm water and add drops of nail polish to the tray, roll the eggs through the mixture, or dip them if you want a sparser coverage and you get a beautiful marble finish.

For the table, I wanted a bright but vintage look, and the flowers were chosen accordingly with roses, gypsophila, vintage-style carnations, lilac, and anemones providing a beautiful combination in red, pink, and blue.

I chose to mix large flower arrangements such as the wreath and a large vase of flowers with small jam jars filled with flowers. These create a volume of flowers that stretch right across the table and the jam jars can also be placed around the room.

I used a pink linen tablecloth and crockery in blue to fit in with the colors of my room and the flowers. Gold cutlery, glassware, and candleholders in shimmery gold and silver lift the table.

The use of fragrant foliage is also a good trick when styling tables and rosemary and eucalyptus are two of my favorites. You are stimulating additional senses and rosemary is also a typical accompaniment to food at Easter.

A really simple trick to enhance the table setting is to consider your plate. Here I have placed a vintage linen napkin with a small piece of foliage and pretty pink ribbon alongside one of the marbled Easter eggs I created. You could swap the egg for a flower.

Here is the finished version of the table and you can see more detail in the video below. There are so many ways in which you can use flowers in your home no matter what your budget. Even a simple plate setting or a small jar will lift your dining area.

This article was written by Nicola Broughton from The Girl with the Green Sofa.

Meet The Author

Nicola juggles her love of interiors, Instagram and Pinterest “addiction” and family, alongside her full-time job growing and investing in high-tech businesses. Interior design and blogging are hobbies, much-needed stress relief in a very full life.

Her interior hobby started when she was studying. She got into furniture renovation while studying for her MBA having moved home at 30 to study full time.

Check out her Blog & Instagram