Valentine's Day Production Techniques
Developing strong production design skills is essential the professional floral designer. To be successful a designer must be fast as well as creative. In this video Leanne shares techniques for Valentine’s Day production. The key is organization and practice. With careful planing and good production skills, busy holidays can be a joy.
Video Transcription
Welcome to the Flower School.com video library. I'm Leanne Kesler, director of the Floral Design Institute, and today, I'm here to talk to you about the Valentine's Day holiday. It's the busiest day in a florist's life, and with a few techniques on production, it can be fabulous fun.
Key to a successful holiday is planning, preparation, and organization. You can fill your vases ahead of time with water premixed with flower food. You can make your bows ahead of time, having them all set so you just pull them off, set them into the vase. Then when your materials arrive, make sure everything's fully hydrated, and then you can begin in your preparation.
For this demonstration, I've set out five vases ready to go. In real life, if you have enough space, at least 10 vases is absolutely fabulous because as you get going, 10 can easily be done in 30 minutes, and working in 30-minute increments is nice and convenient. If you're a little faster, set out 25, if you've got the space and know that you can do that in an hour. Yes, 25 an hour is really not that fast. You'll want to strive to get there.
To get going quickly, I oftentimes start by working in my hand, taking the foliages, gathering them, almost like I'm going to need to do a hand-tied bouquet, adding in the fillers, everything except for your main rose. Then Leanne's rule of thumb, three types of foliage for interest, so adding a little bit of tree fern, which also gives me nice texture. Then once everything's in your hand, judging the height with the vase, give it a fresh cut, and drop it right in. Go back and repeat that. You take your foliage, cluster it in your hand, add the tree fern, little bit of the Misty Latifolium, gather it, cut, and then drop it in the vase.
Before you move on, spray down everything with Crowning Glory. Totally saturate. That will lock in the moisture. Make sure that they stay alive as long as possible. Then go back and add your bow to each vase, just sliding it down in. At this point, you could stop, set them in the cooler, and leave them for almost a week, and they'll be just fine to add roses later.
When you do production work, you can match it to your personal style. If you don't care for the traditional look, choose different foliages: a Fatsia leaf, Ruscus, Lilygrass. Again, gather it in your hand, give it a cut, and then just set it right down in the vase.
As the holiday arrives, and it arrives faster than we ever can imagine, and you're slammed busy, you can be confident that you're prepared, you have everything set. All you need to do, grab your roses, give them a cut, and then set them right down into the nest, ready for sale. Someone else could be doing the sale, adding cards, boxing for delivery, but all's you need to do is go through and drop the roses in place.
To add that last touch, the Oasis flat wire in the quarter inch makes a beautiful, beautiful heart. You can pre-make these so that, again, as you're finishing up, you just go back and add it into the vase, maybe adding two. If you don't like to do bright red, coming back to silver, giving it a little more contemporary vibe.
Practice designing in multiples ahead of time. Mastering production techniques will make the holiday so much more successful. It's really quite easy breaking it down into steps, determining what can be done far in advance, making the bows a little in advance, doing the greens, and then more at the last minute with the roses, and you can master so many designs so quickly. You can do this with dozens, half dozens, bud vases, corsages, bouquets, absolutely anything.
For more creative inspiration, check out the website Flower School.com. The website contains hundreds of floral design how-to videos, floral design classes, online floral classes and DIY Flowers.
If you have questions, don't hesitate to reach out. You can contact us through the website or by telephone at 503-223-8089. Of course, I'm always available. If it's easier for you, my personal email, Leanne@FloralDesignInsitute.com. I'd love to see what you create this holiday season. Take a picture, post it on social media, and tag #FloralDesignInstitute so that we all can see because now it's your turn. Have fun, and do something you love.
