Types of Silk Flowers
The only thing wrong with receiving a big bouquet of your favorite fresh flowers is knowing you'll enjoy them for so short a time. After briefly gracing your home with color and elegance, they'll be gone. For a cost-effective but equally stunning alternative, consider decorating with silk flowers.
The silk flowers of today are so natural, says floral designer Susan Kennedy, that professional florists call them permanent botanicals. With proper care, they last for a lifetime. A type of silk flower exists for each of your decorating needs.
Silk Flower Drop-Ins
For a quick and easy arrangement, choose a silk drop-in. Drop-ins are bunches of equal-length stems tied with decorative bows or raffia fiber. Find a pre-assembled drop-in with flowers and/or foliage to match your decor in a length to fit your chosen container, drop it in place and you're done.
To create a tall floral arrangement in a hurry, dip the ends of a long-stemmed drop-in in hot pan glue and insert it in the center of your silk floral foam. Then surround it with single stems, fillers and foliage to fill the gaps.
Silk Sprays
Silk floral sprays have one stem long enough to hold three or four blooms and leaves of a single flower type. A high-end silk lily spray, for example, would have leaves, fully and partially opened blossoms and buds to mirror the blooming pattern of natural lilies. Sprays are more cost effective than single silk stems because you can either use them as-is or separate them into individual blossoms and buds.
Single Silk Stems
Single silk flower stems are essential to any floral design. Treating yourself to a permanent vase of roses wouldn't be possible without 12 single silk roses, with their long, straight stems, natural leaves and perfectly shaded blooms. A single silk rose with a bit of silk greenery is perfect for a bud vase. Single stems are the most expensive silk flowers, but the attention to detail that goes into their creation is worth every cent.
Silk Flower Cuttings
A silk cutting is simply a shorter version of a silk spray, with one stem, several leaves and three or four blooms. Like a spray, it can either be used in one piece or cut into individual flowers. Use a cutting in a smaller arrangement for which a spray would be too tall.
Silk Floral Picks
Seldom longer than 12 inches, silk floral picks are single stems with small clusters of blooms, foliage, or novelty items like berries, feathers, colored beads or silk butterflies. Several coordinated picks cut to the same length and tied together make a good drop-in.
Silk Floral Bushes
The difference between silk floral bushes and drop-ins is that the bushes have foliage and blooms branching off one stem. When fully extended the branches form a bush. Silk floral bushes can have either one or several varieties of flowers. The most effective variegated ones are color-coordinated. A high-quality silk floral bush, if embellished with a stem-concealing bow, makes an effective artificial bouquet.
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