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| 1. The super-bright red edges of these carnations inspired me. They reminded me of ripe strawberries, red and white gingham tablecloths and peppermint sticks. |
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| 2. Obviously, I was on a flower buying spree the week I took this photo. However, none of the individual arrangements were particularly as compelling as the lot of them together, thus the group photo. |
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| 3. This is a close-up of some of my favorite flowers from the group above. |
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| 4. When I buy flowers, I consider it such a bonus when the flowers are at various stages of maturity. For this arrangement, I wish I had had more of the buds (like the one seen on the left) to add in at varying heights. |
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| 5. This arrangement looks a little incomplete to me; it needed more orange flowers (asters?) and eucalyptus. Anyhow, I like how it looks sort of aquatic and other-worldly. |
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| 6. When we visit my boyfriend's parents, his mom lets me loose in her garden with a pair of clippers! My top picks: clover, young hydrangea, and of course the gorgeous peonies in bloom. Everything's a little wilted in the photo, but it perked up later. |
 7. This is also another bouquet from her garden. The best part of picking flowers straight from the yard is being able to choose greenery from improbable sources.  |
| 8. It's rare that I'm satisfied with an arrangement of a single type of flower, but this one looks like so much more. I buy one or two bunches of multicolored Sweet William, group stems with similar colored blossoms together, and arrange in a progression of color. |
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| 9. In general, I prefer to use the hand-tied bouquet method, but for this arrangement, I used floral foam. I started by placing the largest flowers, moving down in size, finally filling in with the smallest blooms. |
