Gerbera bouts - test run pictures (and questions)

[rockchalkchick]

Ok, I snagged some cheapo mini gerberas last night for my practice in wiring flowers/building bouts - I'm now doing live flowers for my cousin's wedding in October as well as my own in April (just bouquets/bouts/corsages, no arrangements).

So, without knowing the age of the flowers or anything else, I bought a bunch and some leatherleaf and got to work. Wired as best I could, taped, and assembled. Here's what I ended up with:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3001/2731090317_a1772e3fc7.jpg?v=0

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3247/2731090311_82bebbe10d.jpg?v=0


So, what do you think? I'm not sure about the actual greenery to be used for my cousin's wedding, but this was what I could buy cheap. She's doing all gerbs, I'm doing all daffodils.

Questions: Is floral tape supposed to get un-sticky? It's still really tacky even this morning, 12 hours later. I had different degrees of stretch to it (from barely stretching to broke-the-tape) and it doesn't seem to matter - they're both still tacky. And when it comes to wiring gerbs for a bouquet instead, how do you hide the wire? I kind of struggled to make it all come together well in just this small sample - do you wire and tape on a full bouquet? For exposed stems, how far down do you wire/tape? I suppose the ultimate question - can you do an unwired hand-tied bouquet for gerberas? From discussions I've seen, they wilt badly/quickly, but I may just have to test that myself to figure it out.

[Kfancii]

For a first try, your bouts look pretty good! Here are a couple of suggestions for making them better next time-

When you wire the gerb, cut the stem off leaving yourself only about 1/4 to 1/2 inch so that your bout stems don't get too chunky. Take your floral wire and cut it in half. Take 2 wires and criss cross them through the stem like this:

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w196/Kfancii/WireAlstroe.jpg

Bend the wires down and tape the stem and wires to make your bout stem.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w196/Kfancii/WireAlstroe2.jpg

Floral tape only activates the sticky when you stretch it. Only one side should be sticky, and if you are having issues with the whole bout being sticky, I would recommend trying a different type of tape. (I like floralife brand the best if you can find it) The other thought is that you might have too much tape on the bout (this is pretty normal for a newbie designer) so just practice as much as you can and you will get better at manipulating the tape roll. Be sure that you are starting the tape at an angle and streching at that angle as you spin the wired flower to stretch the tape.

Now, on to your bouquet question. Gerbs do tend to wilt quickly if they are out of water. What type of bouquet are you making? Will it be in a holder or will it be a hand tied?

There are a couple of suggestions I would give you here. First- to wire a gerb with the stem, on the underside of the flower head, push your wire right up into the calex next to the stem. Now twist the flower and let the wire wrap around the flower stem as you are twisting it. To tie it off, twist the end of the wire back up making a little loop at the bottom of the stem. Be sure to tuck in the sharp end so your bride doesn't get stuck.

The other option is to leave the "straw" tubes that come with gerbs on them and skip the wiring process. Of course if you are making a hand tied bouqet, this isn't the best option because the straws could fall off. If that is the case, I would either skip the wiring all together and keep the bouquet in a vase of water until the wedding starts, or wire as I mentioned above.

Hope that helps and make sense!

ETA -Oh...one more hint- when adding your greenery try to use one nice piece of leather that covers the back of the flower instead of two. When you use two, it can sometimes give the appearance of the bout having ears or horns. :)

Kelly

[Kfancii]

Okay... I just went back and read your post again and completely missed the question about unwired hand tied bouquets. The answer is a resounding YES! If I were making a hand tied of gerbs, I would choose to leave them unwired, but keep them in the vase of water up until the last few minutes before walking down the aisle. Plan ahead and make sure that you have a vase that you can keep the ribbons on the outside of the vase sho they won't get wet, and also have a towel handy to dry off the bouquet before you hand it to the bride so her dress doesn't get wet. Gerbs drink water all the way up the stem, so they are best in arrangements that are done in vases where they get all the water they need.

[rockchalkchick]

Thanks so much!

I actually did cut the stems pretty far up - the chunky stem was just because I kept adding tape hoping to somehow un-sticky it. It was my first try doing everything (wiring, taping, arranging, etc) so I was definitely uncoordinated! The leatherleaf is definitely not my first choice in greenery, but could be the only thing we can get (cousin wants to use Sam's Club instead of another wholesaler, since they're the absolute cheapest - I'm worried about quality).

On that note, I forgot to ask above - is there a good/easy way to wire leatherleaf or other ferns? I saw the step-by-step (thanks SOOO much by the way!!), and wiring regular leaves makes sense, but the stems are so narrow and the branching points are pretty delicate - I broke a couple stems before I got something that even half worked.

Is there a good way to wire spindly/stemmy greenery?

Now I really want to order a real corsage just to see how it's done! I never paid attention before!

[Kfancii]

I'm glad that my post helped! Leather leaf isn't wired the same way as the other leaves I showed in the tutorial.

The best way to wire leather leaf is to just use a wire to reinforce the leather leaf frond. (I cut all my wires in half for corsage work so I'm working with about an 8 inch wire to begin with)

Take that wire and bend it in half, then slide the loop end between the brachs of the leather fern from front to back on each side of the main stem about half way up your green. leave the wires straight running down the back sides of the main stem and then bring one wire to the front and wrap the other wire and the main stem with it where there are no more brachs. (Pull the brachs off the bottom of the piece of leather leaving the stem bare for about an inch)

Leather leaf is the most commonly used green in the industry, but if you can get others, my favorite to work with is Plumosa for wedding work. It is very soft and flowy. I also like Tree Fern, but it can sometimes be a little thin and most times I used both the tree and leather in my work if I couldn't get plumosa.

Let me know if this doesn't make sense.

ETA - maybe check with a local florist to see what they will sell you greens for per stem. Since you won't be needing a whole lot to just do corsage work I bet you could get a few stems for next to nothing.