If you’ve been spending a lot more time sitting at home — maybe with the occasional “wasting-my-weekend-away” blues — and wondering what else you can do amidst a pandemic with no end in sight… Why not sign up for a floral workshop? I’ve always heard of people spending thousands to fly all the way to London for Floral Courses at the London Flower School. But since travelling is out of the picture, I recently attended a floral workshop here in Singapore that was just as delightful and so accessible! It was also my first ever floral workshop — whatever took me so long to do this?
Here’s everything that went down!
A Floral Workshop By Keira Floral
A few weekends ago, Andrea and I attended a Floral Design Course by Lowee from Keira Floral.
The floral workshop was held at Lowee’s minimalist yet aesthetic home, that was also really instagrammable for all the floral arrangement shots! We had the flexibility of choosing our own flowers for every floral arrangement we did and fresh flowers were restocked daily across the 3-day workshop.
The Wonderful World Of Flowers
Prior to this workshop, I always thought that only 3 types of floral arrangement existed. You either have them as a hand bouquet, a vase arrangement, or use a floral foam sponge. One of the my biggest takeaways from the floral workshop was expanding my knowledge about the different types of floral arrangements possible. There are aplenty!
Day 1: Bridal Floral Bouquets
Day 1 of the workshop started with an introduction to Bridal Floral Bouquets. Assembling a wedding bouquet took a lot more patience than I expected. It was tough holding the unfinished bouquet with one hand, while using my other hand to decide the placement of the flowers. I will never complain about the prices of bouquets again! It was quite an ordeal, but seeing the final product made everything worth it.
Floral Wedding Hand Bouquet
We also learned how to make our own festive wreaths that were perfect for the upcoming Autumn season. Every time Christmas comes around, my mum would buy a wreath to decorate our home; I always found these wreaths a little plain and boring — but not this year! After my floral workshop run, you bet I’ll be making my own wreath for the family this Christmas. Assembling the wreath was also such a fun and therapeutic activity!
Floral Festive Wreath
Lastly, Day 1 concluded with our own take on Boutonniere, which are the small floral pieces you usually see groomsmen and bridesmaids wearing.
Floral Boutonniere
Day 2: Floral Bowl Centrepieces (My Favourite!)
Day 2 of the workshop was probably the highlight for me. We started the day learning how to make our own Floral Bowl Centrepieces. These arrangements are usually placed on the table at weddings, meetings, dinners, or just for decor purposes. My favourite part was when Lowee taught us an interesting technique to arrange flowers in a bowl without the need for floral foams.
Floral Bowl Centrepiece
I was also introduced to another type of floral arrangement: Ikebana. In Japanese, Ikebana signifies “living flowers” and this type of floral arrangement is very minimalist and plain. In Ikebana, the flowers, vase, stems, leaves, and branches are all key to the final art form. The goal is to create a harmony of shapes, lines and form, to appreciate the subtle beauty of the flowers.
Ikebana Arrangement
Finally, we learned how to make Large Urn Floral Arrangements. They are pretty similar to Floral Bowl Centerpieces, just on a bigger scale. Large urn arrangements are perfect to decorate many areas of your venue, such as on either side of the altar, or at wedding receptions.
Large Urn Floral Piece
Day 3: Floral Arch
Floral Arch
On the last day of the floral workshop, we worked in groups to create a Floral Arch. Floral Arches are both time and labour intensive because of how extensive they are. They’re also quite the challenge!
We started by first putting together a floral arrangement for the bottom of our arch (with the use of a floral foam). This was a pretty good test of the skills I’d picked up from the previous days. We could only embark on building the arch when we had the base floral arrangement in place. Not going to lie, it was tough work and required a lot of patience. But I definitely had fun interacting and bonding with my group as we painstakingly put our arch together.
Tablescaping Styling (With Centrepieces)
Finally, to conclude the Floral Design Course, Lowee also taught us Tablescaping Styling using our Ikebana arrangement from Day 2. I really liked when she shared her personal trips and tricks on how to put together a table arrangement for wedding receptions, or any special occasion for that matter!
The Highlight Of My 2021
At the end of the Floral Design Course, I received a Floral Design Certificate. Honestly, receiving this certificate brought me more joy than when I received my Diploma Certificate… This workshop was probably the highlight of 2021 for me.
Floral Arrangement Backdrop Installation Piece
Apart from the hands-on floral arrangements, I liked how Lowee started each day with a short theory lesson. This really deepened our knowledge of floral arrangements; from basics like conditioning and caring of flowers, to wedding styling and how to create larger scale set ups (e.g. for weddings, press events, special occasions etc). I found these tips really helpful, especially if you’re planning a wedding and worried about your flower budget, longevity, logistics and theme!
Lessons From Flowers
My grandma actually does floral arrangements on a weekly basis. So attending the workshop gave me an opportunity to spend more time with her, since I can now accompany her while she does her floral arranging. All in, I truly enjoyed myself at the floral workshop — a lot more than I expected!
Lowee’s Floral Design Course was not just insightful, but a really eye-opening and healing experience. I love that there is absolutely no right or wrong in floral arrangements. Instead, it is about applying tips and tricks to make the arrangements more lush and visually pleasing. Lowee was always so patient with us and never held back on sharing her personal trips and tricks. As a beginner, I really appreciated how Lowee was always walking around to ensure we were on track and helping us to improve our individual arrangements.
More importantly, this floral workshop taught me to appreciate the smaller things in life. The littlest details can make a huge difference. Even if you don’t intend on doing floral arrangements regularly, taking time off your usual routine to attend a floral workshop might be the timeout you need. There is so much serenity and joy to being surrounded by the beauty nature has to offer. I was surprised at how therapeutic floral arranging could be (especially under the warm guidance of Lowee)!
How To Enrol In A Floral Workshop
The Floral Design Course by Keira Floral is held by Lowee on a monthly basis, with the next one happening at the end of September. Each workshop costs $1,900 per pax — but head over to the Keira Floral website for early bird rates! Slots are very limited due to COVID-19 restrictions, so be sure to sign up early if you’re interested.
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Thank you so much for reading my floral diary! I look forward to hearing about your own floral workshop experiences if you do enrol in one. Have fun!
Love,
Rachel
