Jackie Kennedy's style left an unforgettable imprint on her husband's term in office. Her personal interest in American history, art, and music guided her choices in furnishing the White House and arranging its social functions. Style, say interior designers, is the result of choices. Fortunately, creating a trademark style for your home won't require an appropriation from the national budget. Fresh flowers offer countless inexpensive options for imbuing a house with your personal touch. They are easy to work with and can be changed often.
Your personal preferences can guide you among different types of flowers, colors, containers, arrangement style, even placement. Fiery red blooms to inject a flash of color in a neutral-toned room? A pitcher of fresh blue flowers amongst a collection of antique delft dishes? These details will provide the finishing touches that suffuse a home with your personality.
"It is amazing the huge impact a small addition such as flowers will generate," says Laurie Ward, home design expert and author of the best-selling book "Use What You Have Decorating." "And, the best part is, you can transform the mood of a room just by getting creative with the container or changing around the types of flowers you use."
A topiary of flowers (see instructions below) is a quick and easy arrangement that can express many different moods. With yellow spring flowers, it anticipates the new growth of the season. With showy red blooms and holiday ribbon, it proclaims Christmas. With dainty, soft-hued flowers, it becomes a guestroom welcome.
Flowers are willing handmaidens in the cause. They can help to establish an interior design theme or capture a seasonal ambiance. A mix of loosely arranged flowers in warm colors emphasizes a casual, country style. Flowers in the primary colors of red, yellow and blue banish the gloom of winter.
Simple, imaginative gestures can also distinguish your home entertaining. Hollow out small pumpkins and fill them with flowers for your Thanksgiving table. Let small nosegays become everlasting mementos for those present at special family occasions.
Choose your way among the unlimited possibilities of the flower world and your home will soon be blooming with style.
BANISH WINTER WITH A SPRING TOPIARY
Fill a low container with wet floral foam. Gather 3-5 stems of flowers in your hand, so all the flowers are clustered evenly together at the top of the stems. Slip a rubber band around the bottom of the stems and bring it up to just under the blooms. Holding the stems in a group near the bottoms, make a single insertion into the foam. Add French or holiday ribbon, tying it just below the blooms. Add greens and moss at the base.
