More Ikebana!

I have made a couple more Ikebana arrangements, and I will now show them to you! I know you are as excited as I am!


This was my second arrangement. It has Calla Lilies and Kangaroo Ears Paws (thanks MildlyCrafty!). There's also some cute pink flowers and a branch with some leaves on it, but I don't remember the names of those. The teacher showed me what to do for the main branches, but I placed the Calla Lilies and leafy branch myself, and she said it was good. Yay!


Because the Freesias and one Carnation weren't done yet, and the branches were growing leaves, I rearranged those pieces of the first arrangement into a new arrangement. I only had the one kenzan, so couldn't have two at once. This is my unofficial but still very much pleasing to me arrangement.


For this arrangement, the flowers were not quite in sync with the blooming, so it was not as pretty as it could have been at any one point in time. The roses were best the day or two after I got the flowers, and the lilies didn't bloom until 3 and 4 days after, when the roses were wilting. I liked this arrangement a lot, and just wish I had a more appropriate bowl. We make these at school using their supplies, then bring the flowers home and rearrange them in our own. I got three interesting bowls from the secondhand store for my arrangements. The only problem with them is that they're about 2/3 the size of the school's bowls, and in arranging Ikebana you tend to base the lengths of your flowers off the size of the container. I didn't want to re-cut everything after it looks so perfect the way it was, especially as the leaf would just be too big if everything else were smaller, so I left it even though it definitely overpowers the bowl.

I'm so glad I'm doing Ikebana. It's really cool to learn a beautiful flower arranging technique that I'll be able to use for the rest of my life, and it's nice to have the fresh flowers in the apartment on a weekly basis. Even Lee likes the flowers, and says they brighten the place up. Plus, I get a certificate for each year I complete, and the textbook is in English so I actually am learning the technical aspects and not just trying to piece together what I can from pictures and the other students.