great arrangement!  i think your recommendation about tassels is great!

Hi Kathleen - I love the smell of those lillies - and the tassel on the vase looks great.

Stephanie

These are lovely Kathleen - fresh always do beat artificial. I actually had a similar thought for a pair of empty niches. They can be hard to fill withouit making them look '50's 'dorky'.

Nice touch

Kathleen, This is a great look and very creative.  Tell me, how do you do the sticks in glycerin part?  Does it preserve any type of sticks?  The tassles look really cute on the bottle too!  Thanks for sharing the photos.

Awesome job, Kathleen.  I love the finished look. 

Kathy

Looks beautiful Kathleen and I agree with you, there is nothing like fresh flowers.  The tassels are a nice touch as well.  I'd be interested in hearing more about the glycerin as well.

Nothing beats real flowers!! Silks can be great as you say but real flowers are so much more valuable precisely becasue they have a short life. I try to use real vs silk whenever I can.

Lovely composition, Kathleen.  One word of caution when working with Rubrums (or Stargazer Lilies).  The male blossom has an orange pollen on the anther that stains permanently.  When using these, I make sure I trim the anther from the filament OVER A TRASH CAN.  The stuff will even stain your skin for a while.  It's lethal!  But the fragrance....OH the FRAGRANCE!!!!

Thanks for sharing your idea with us all, Kathleen!  Cheers! from DC...

    Jaynee

Love lilies!  Nice arrangement. 

Jaynee gives great advice regarding the orange pollen leaving stains.  I also heard that the flower's will last longer if you cut off the anthers. 

I'm curious to know about the sticks in glycerin too!  What does it do?  Do sticks go bad? 

The orange pollen does stain and I just left mine on long enough to take the photos - more contrast for the pic.  I strip mine wearing my garden gloves because some of the anthers are in quite deeply.

I will do a blog on preserving leaves etc in glycerin, but it keeps even the sticks more pliable and give them a bit of a glossy appearance that they normally lose as they dry. I just put them in a glycerin water combo and let them set- if the end is very woody you can smash it with a hammer a bit to help with uptake.

Kathleen, how very pretty!  I usually hang some kind of picture in those niches, which seem to be very popular here in Florida.  I like your idea!  So far, no tornado and my weather radio has not gone off, yet!

Really pretty  I would love to hear about preserving the leaves and twigs in glycerin. Yes you are right real is always better than fake. Last year I did a staging and picked just about every pretty flower, twig, branch, leaf from my yard. THe arrangements were gorgeous but only lasted less than a week. My client went crazy trying to emulate the arrangements.

I went with silks after that and the realtor brings fresh for the Open House

Phyllis Pafumi

Kathleen - alright, now that's elegant.  The blue of the vase set's off those lillies quite nicely.

Jackie

Kathleen, I love your idea for the niches.  Wished we had used it for a house we did about two weeks ago.  We hung pictures and they are nice - but your vases are spectacular!  Thanks for the tassel idea.  Betty

Very cool Kathleen and beautiful flowers.  You are right about those darn pollen pistils, they can stain.  I think the Indians used these for dye... kinda like saffron.  Hey is that you or your twin in the pic? :)))

This looks really good!  I love the tassel.

I sometimes do an iron piece or a picture in a niche, but I like the more dimensional look with a vase - just sticks would work also , but this was a special occasion and didn't need to last for a long time.

Lori - Hmmmm, I'm not saying

Get your graphic & put it on your website - that is, IF they are really your photos!!!! 

http://activerain.com/blogsview/191394/-True-Portfolio-an

This is the link for the above graphic - as you can see I had to change the color so it went with my website- just a designer at heart! 

These are really nice! You did a great job!

Carla

Classy look ,and ty for the warning on the stain!

I love, love, love your flora arrangements.  I have never heard of the glycerin trick - you taught me something today!

Those are really beautiful--I wish I had that kind of talent!

Yup... all mine.  And I took them :)  I actually put the logo on my site too ;)

Kathleen, Very beautiful arrangement! I'm intrigued by the dark area around the niche. Is that the wall color or photo framing? You do such beautiful work!

A wonderful design & thanks so much for sharing your expertise!

Yvonne - that is the wall color - a green sand paint - Ralph Lauren brand. You can see it better in the close up - I moved the flowers for that reason. I just didn't explain that in the blog - sorry.

I do weddings too - you could fly me out there!!! 

Like Jaynee said the fragrance is so wonderful - I took them home and they still look and smell just like last weekend.

Kathleen, Thanks for the explanation.

Since I have many reservations for taxi service from Phoenix on the days preceding the wedding I will be GLAD to include you in the list! What time will you arrive?

I am doing a house this week that has two concave niches about 43" high with lights, in thier stairwell, and can not figure out what will look best.  I was thinking of some type of spikey greenery.

You need something at least 32" tall, I included a link for some corkscrew willow, teasels, and dune grass - this is a great source but some of these I have found a Wal Mart.

 Depending on the background color of the niche - you can go light or dark - put in some texture and dimension  - with the lighting a one color arrangement, like wood  branches, will be very interesting.

Stargazers are my favorite! They look great against the green background. Nice job!

Tanya - Mine too and oh the smell - indescribably delicious.

Wow, it is amazing what $10 can do. I wish I had a flair for things like that, it would help when you walk in to some houses for an open house. Sometimes a quick little thing could be the difference.

Todd, Most of the time it is the little details that make the biggest difference.
But you could do this one for sure.