Floral Design Take 2

I think I did a much better job designing my arrangement in this week's class. I used all of the flowers and the other materials Tipwan gave us and then some! My arrangement definitely did not look scrawny this week.

The first thing we learned was how to cut the floral foam to fit into our container. The foam was soaked with water and it was pretty easy to shape it to fit in the bowl. We then taped the foam to the bowl so it would remain secure. 

The inspiration for this design was a photo that one of the women in the class had taken of an arrangement on display at a Marriott resort in Phuket. We used these red lily-like flowers (found all over Nichada), twigs and leaves from a gardenia  plant.

I was given five stalks of the red flowers to use and I ended up adding two more stalks to fill out the arrangement a little more. 

 My arrangement before adding the gardenia leaves.

My arrangement with the gardenia leaves (used to hide my "technique"). They really did add a nice finishing touch.

My arrangement on display at home.

I was very proud of myself for getting this home in one piece on the golf cart. 

The arrangement is huge - well over 40" high and quite wide. I set it in the living room because it is so large and colorful and won't get "lost" even with the high ceilings and open space in that room. It was too big for the dining room table and for an end table in the family room. The red flowers are placed just high enough to draw attention to the arrangement from a distance. It really fills the space nicely.

Last night PeePorn made a delicious dinner of chicken cashew, rice and fruit for the kids and I. It was the one night this week that we didn't have any school events or sports practices and everyone was home for dinner. 

 PeePorn also made these.  

She told me what they were but, as usual, something got lost in the translation. More my fault than hers.

Inside the banana leaf was a portion of sticky rice. Two of the bundles were topped with some kind of a dried fish or shrimp paste - it tasted very salty. Caitlynne took a tiny nibble of one but was less than thrilled when I told her what the orange stuff was. 

The other two bundles were topped with I have no idea what. Christopher said it looked like brain matter. After that comment, no one, myself included, wanted to taste it. 

Have a great Friday!