Go on, give it a go! Why not try your hand at arranging your own silk flowers or silk flower bouquet.  It's not difficult and only takes a little imagination. Firstly, decide where the arrangement is going to be placed when complete, this will often determine the size, colour and shape of the final design.

Next you will need to buy your choice of flowers, seedpods, twigs and leaves etc.  There are no hard rules which determine what you can and cannot have together, if you want clashing colours – go ahead!   Today there are many more choices available to florists, not simply a few poppies, carnations and grass – there are endless colours and verieties to complete any design no matter how traditional or contemporary.

Most of the artificial materials that are available including the Oasis dry-foam in which they are arranged are very light in weight and I'd always recommend that whatever container is used for the display, that it is weighed down with something to ensure it's stable.For example, if the container is transparent, choose some stones, sand, pretty beads, shells, moss, coloured glass, pot-pourri or anything which compliments the arrangement colours.  If the container is not transparent, any heavy weight will do, from stones, gravel or a lump of the kids play dough! 

Now you are ready to begin. If this is your fist time at flower arranging, it may be advisable to have several blocks of the dry oasis so that you can experiment with ideas.

As artificial flowers are made using wire and strong plastic stems, it is best to use wire cutters when shortening the stems.  Scissors are often not tough enough and you'll probably end up ruining them.If you cut a stem too short, they can be lengthened again with wooden sticks (picks) which you can tape onto the flower stem using green florist tape.

Don't be afraid to cut down the flowers and materials to smaller more manageable sizes.  If you have leaves and bits left over, they can be used to fill in the gaps later to cover the oasis.

It's quite important when arranging flowers that you think about how they would grow in the wild - afterall, it's important to make your arrangement look as natural as possible.  

To make your arrangement more permanent, you can glue your stems with a glue gun before inserting them into the dry foam.

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