Spiky balls and pink stems

I told you some posts ago that I signed up for Ikebana lessons. Well, I had my first lesson tonight at a local community centre.

Our challenge - this is Eiko's beautiful example

Starting out - bowl, spike and flowers


We started with the green balled stems

We started by choosing the most beautiful balled stem and measured the length by twice the diameter of the bowl plus the height. The subsequent stems were cut at 85% and 70% of the length of the first stem and were placed behind and in front of the first.

See? Spiky balls

Then the next addition was the pink stems. The most important one needed to be 50% of the first green balled stem and angled out towards your right shoulder. Then the other two stems needed to form a triangle in the arrangement at differing heights.

Pink stems

Mini purple chrysanthemum provided the final touches


Ta da! My first attempt at Ikebana

We had to disassemble our work in order to take it home, so the real challenge was recreating the beauty at home!

Sadly, it's not quite the same, but this doesn't stop me from admiring it lots. I wonder how long the flowers are going to last.


Until next creation,
Monica