Some Flowers!

Since I took so long finishing the Disney posts, here's a few Ikebana arrangements for your viewing pleasure:

Lovely lilies and Birds of Paradise...Bird of Paradises...nice flowers.

Closeup on the pretties.


I loved the flowers and the leaf, but not so much the big pointy things.


See? Awesome flowers.


This is another really cool one. The pink edging on the leaves with the pink carnations and the white flowers for the main branches to set it all of...awesome.


See the pink on the leaves? Tres cool!


Sunflowers that refused to cooperate.


Most recent one. I like this one, with the Bird of Paradise and the ferns, the lily and the red fuzzy flowers.


Close-up of the center of the piece. I really should figure out what the flowers I use are called!

There were actually two other arrangements in between, but I managed to lose a piece of one of them on the way home and was so upset that I never photographed it. It looked awesome at school, and just wasn't the same after. The other one never cooperated. The flowers wilted right away and there were branches with spiny spheres on top that liked to attack. I'm really enjoying learning how to arrange the flowers!

Stalling...

We're back from Disney, but still going through the pictures. Many posts with lots of pictures to come shortly. While you're waiting, here's another Ikebana post!


After having no fresh flowers for two weeks due to vacations (I'm not complaining!) there is a new arrangement livening up the room. It goes amazingly well with its bowl. I'm much happier with it now that it's here than I was when I made it at school. I've gotten roses from Ikebana a heck of a lot more than I've gotten roses from Lee. It doesn't bother him one bit. This arrangement has purple flowers, more Calla Lilies, and pretty pink roses. It also has a leaf. It is in the same style as the first few. We don't branch out into more interesting things for a bit, until we get the whole shin (tallest one, nearly straight up), soet (3/4 height of shin, off at a 45 degree angle), hikae (3/4 height of soet, the leaf, about 75 degrees from shin) formula down. Pretty flowers though!


This weekend I will deal with all of the pictures and post all about Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea. At least six full posts. With lots of pictures each. I promise!

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 Paws. 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.