Day 34 - Make a Fake Flower Arrangement

Date: February 9th, 2010

I love flowers the same way I love puppies.  As long as someone else feeds it and makes sure it doesn't die, I will love it like my own.  But man that keeping it alive, thing, its really annoying.  So much work.  I have had fake puppies.  They're called stuffed animals and its totally normal to have them well into adulthood; I've been told.  I've been thinking recently how much happier I am when I surround myself with beauty and I decided that I wanted to cut that pesky "keep them alive" step out of having beautiful flowers around.

I've never arranged fake flowers before.  I wanted something that would look nice and fit well in my office.  I've started adorning my bookshelf in my office with all the little creations I've amassed these last few weeks so it seemed like a good idea to make sure it would look good in that room.  So, I braved the blizzard and dragged myself out to JoAnn Fabrics to find some fake flowers and other necessary tools.  There was, quite frankly, way too freakin' much to choose from.  It was awkward and annoying.  Like I imagine a blind date to be.

When I got home I started cutting into the little annoying green block that the flowers would stand in.  That took a long time, but maybe that's because I used a craft knife instead of a normal knife.  I think, subconsciously, I wanted the project to be harder than I anticipated it would be.  See, some of the things I've done so far I haven't known how they were going to go.  Others I assumed would be really hard and still others seemed almost comically easy.

Yesterday's project fell into the last category.  Oh, stab a green block with some fake flowers until they look pretty.  Done.  Let's watch TV.  Seriously.  It felt like a cop out, but I really wanted pretty flowers for my office.  Boy was I wrong.  From the cutting of the block to the arranging of the flowers, it was clearly not one of my strengths.

 

Pictured: My little green nemesis.

I had bought a small, pre-made bouquet to take apart and put in the block.  Again, I thought this would not be a challenge.  So, on a completely unrelated note, did you know that fake flowers have a thin metal center in each of their stems to make them both flexible and strong?  Gosh if I sure didn't.  After practicing and perfecting a semi-violent, totally delightful, three step process, I managed to get the flowers off their stems.  Man, you have never seen something as pathetic as the bottom half of a stripped bouquet of fake flowers.  Ok, to be fair, I can think of one thing...  emo kids.

 

This is my emo face.

Honestly, arranging the flowers wasn't really all that hard.  Insert stem into green block.  Repeat.  The challenge was making it look good.  It was a challenge I believe I failed.  I mean, its not awful, but it looks very... amateurish.  Considering that, by definition, this must be the first time I've done this, I suppose I shouldn't complain about that.  Whatever.  I do what I want.

 

Do you like this butterfly?  Whatever.  I don't care.

The final touch was to put little colored marbles in the vase to finish the look and hold the flowers in.  The arrangement you see there is the best attempt I made at putting them together.  Like I said, its not that bad.  I'll be happy to have it around.  The bright colors cheer me up and the shiny marbles make me forget things I was thinking before I looked at them.

 

What's going on?  I don't understand.

I'm pleased with the way the marbles turned out in the arrangement.  The purple worked nicely with the clear marbles and while I wasn't super pleased about the flowers - I did like the way the marbles came together.

 

See?  Organized randomization.  Its a logic thing.

So... today's lesson?  Don't underestimate new tasks.  I thought this would take me about 25-30 minutes.  Given the weather and school getting a bit harder, I was hoping for a light day.  It ended up taking about 90 minutes to get something that I was happy with.  See, I never really cultivated the creative spirit within.  I liked to draw and paint and color when I was a kid, but I was not the "omg art is totes amazing" type when I was growing up.  I liked to talk.  A lot.  I liked cards and toys and undressing my barbies.  See, that way I could pick their clothes for them.  Nevermind.

Anyway, the point is, while arts and crafts doesn't seem like a stretch to most people - for me its branching out.  Its not unlike someone who's never done a logic puzzle before, spending a week trying out the smorgasbord of puzzles you can find at the grocery store.  I rip through them like there's no tomorrow - but they're crazy hard for a lot of people who've never flexed that part of their brains before.  That's art for me.  And music, for that matter.  I have a lot of musical things on my list because they are difficult for me.

I just needed a little reminder that part of the fun of this project is not being good at things.  And it was fun.  I enjoyed trying this time around.  It honestly became comical after a little while.  I put those flowers in and took them back out about twenty times.  Who knew something so seemingly simple and girly would be the thing that tripped me up the most so far?  Such is life, or so they say.