Your CartHow to Style & Care for Faux Flowers: Best Tips
Spring flowers put on a cheerful show in the garden, but for those of us that can’t wait, faux blooms bring joy earlier!
It seems like this past year, and this one too, we all want to make the most of life at home. Let’s start here.
We just launched our Spring Collection of Les Belles Fleurs, they are bright and cheerful! {something all of us can use more of on the daily.}
Even though I wrote a post about How to Care for Faux Flowers not too long ago, so many of you still have questions about how to style and care for our arrangements and bouquets. I’m adding a few more hints and tips for all of you who have called, emailed and asked questions on our Instagram account.
{And showing off our latest “blooms” – like a proud mama.}
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Our life-like real touch French tulips invoke the blissful magical feeling that comes from a sun-filled day with their happy bright pink color.
Here are some more styling & cleaning tips.
1. Fluff and Breathe.
After unboxing your faux flowers, they might be a little compressed from shipping. Carefully “fluff” the petals and the leaves of each bloom for a natural, full look. Allow your flowers to “breathe” for a half a day or a full day, then look at your arrangement and make any adjustments.
Roses in different hues give this Romantic Pinks Rose Arrangement a just picked from the garden look. Planted in a hand painted white terra pot, tied with a luscious chartreuse ribbon, this will give your decor a perfect pop of color.
2. Arrange and Admire.
Arrange your floral bouquet in a favorite vase if you bought one of our hand tied bouquet of blooms. The general rule is that your arrangement should be 1-1-1/2 times the height of your vase. You can cut the bottom of the stem with wire cutters. Don’t use scissors or you will ruin the blades. Arrange your flowers one by one. After you’ve cut all your stems, place them in your vase one by one at alternate angles, working around the vase.
When you’re done, your stems should be “crisscrossed” at the bottom. In nature, no two stems are the same and your faux florals shouldn’t be, either. Bend and move each one gently in a slightly different direction. Remember that faux flowers can be gently coaxed to bend in a natural curve, the more realistic your arrangement is, the more natural your flowers will look.
The perfect accessory to bring beauty to your home, our Soft Pink Hydrangea Stems are bright and cheerful. Sold in a bouquet of five stems, place them in your favorite vase on your French desk or a side table.
After it’s all done, step back and see if you want to make any changes.
3. A Little Fakery Goes a Long Way.
If your vase is clear, adding just a little water adds an immense amount of “natural” to the illusion. If you haven’t bought one of our hydrangeas that are especially made to stand in water, simple coat the bottom of your stems with clear nail polish so any wire doesn’t add rust to your vase.
Fresh flowers shed, so let your faux blossoms shed a few leaves or buds on the table.
A lasting tribute to the romantic rose, our Romance Poetique Pink Cabbage Rose Hand Tied Bouquet adds brightness and warmth to your home.
4. Always use Odd Numbers.
Odd numbers just always look better and more natural in any container. For our hand tied bunches, I always use odd numbers, one exception is a bouquet that includes spray roses, with more flowers per stem, so that counts as one stem but has an uneven number of flowers.
5. Protect them from Sun.
With careful placement, your faux florals will last for a few years. Like real floral designs, they do have a life expectancy. I think that every two to three years, you should re-evaluate your faux florals to be sure they still look fresh.
Avoid placing your flower arrangements in direct sunlight, as the fabric petals are often dyed and will fade in the sun. If you do want to display your florals outside, I recommend placing them under the canopy of your patio, or perhaps even on a table shaded with an umbrella. Your flowers will still fade somewhat and collect more dust, so I recommend you either just go for it and replace them more often,
Arranged perfectly in a painted white terra pot, an assortment of blue and white hydrangeas will remind you of sunny days in the country, with the scent of flowers in the air.
6. Clean on a Regular Basis.
Dust your faux florals either every week, or bi-weekly. Dust does gather, so use your preferred method to dust each flower and branch. A small feather duster, a micro-fiber cloth, or a clean paint brush all work wonders.
I also sometimes put my hair dryer on low- air only {NO heat!!} and gently blow away dust. My favorite method to clean is to use a smaller soft bristled paint brush, this seems to work well for me.
Our one of kind Faux Floral May Day Tussie is custom made, each silver plated metal cone is filled with a sweet posy of softly colored roses and hydrangeas.
7. Avoid Water.
As tempting as it may be, please don’t wash your flowers or use those canned chemical silk flower cleaner sprays. Both of these methods may damage your beautiful flowers by either changing the color or the shape. Our Les Belles Fleurs Collection is especially curated to offer you the most realistic flowers possible. They need to keep their natural shape and color to look their best!
Our bright French Adoration Bouquet is perhaps my favorite this season. Almost sold out, it’s a fresh reminder that joy filled spring days are on their way. Planted in a white cast iron chateau style urn, pink roses, apricot peach peonies, pale pink hydrangeas, lavender purple pansies and chartreuse green viburnum add a pop of bright.
I’m excited about our new Spring Collection of hand tied bouquets, petite arrangements and larger blooming arrangements to make your home beautiful.
Let these floral charmers add a touch of savoir faire in your home. Faux flowers are your best friends! They’re always cheerful, and never a need to water!
A BIENTOT
Shop for the best in French Antiques, furniture with the patina of age, vintage accessories to delight you and your family & friends, and French Country utilitarian pieces. Treasures that make your home fresh, beautiful, inspirational and above all uniquely yours. Visit our shop FrenchGardenHouse.com
I have the wild wood country raspberry and the autumn butterfly bush from FrenchGardenHouse. I use them as accents for other arrangements and as bundles by themselves. They are so realistic and give me great joy during this time of year when I don’t have any flowers in the yard. Because I do grow a lot of flowers friends thought they were real. They give years of enjoyment!
So happy you are enjoying your “faux” flowers, Gloria. It’s always so wonderful to have some pretty flowers, isn’t it?