A very festive sales table, a plant stall with seasonal foliage and refreshments of mince pies and stollen put us in a Christmas mood even before Gill presented her ‘Christmas Sparkle’ demonstration.
Gill’s love of foliage (often enhanced with a little glitter) was evident in all her arrangements. We started with one to put on the front step to encourage Santa to visit. Blue pine, fatsia, laurel, red and silver birch , berried ivy, skimmia and dried bulrushes were all included before artificial poinsettia and baubles were added.
We moved into the hall for the setting for the second design. The container was a cocoa husk on a plinth and included a welcome wreath. Dracaena leaves formed the outline shape and were also used as tubes holding baubles. Kermit chrysanthemums, skimmia and yew were added before beautiful lime green orchids were used as the focal flower. The third arrangement was stunning with wonderful use of foliage and autumnal bronze flowers. A more traditional design for a table arrangement was next.
We certainly had sparkle in the final two designs. The fifth one used stars, black glittered birch together with sprayed fatsia and strelitzia leaves. Strelitzia and roses were just two of the flowers which provided the wonderful contrasting orange colour. The final design had even more glitz including beaded coathangers, baubles, an orange bath puff and a soft toy reindeer. No flowers but a fitting arrangement to put us all in the festive mood.
Thank you Gill for an entertaining evening, full of useful tips and ideas that we can use at home and inspiring designs with beautiful flowers and foliage – we all left feeling more ready for the preparations and the celebrations ahead.
