The decorating ideas of different interior designers could often times not be more apart. However, there is one point they all agree upon: The fact that the use of fresh cut flowers in a home gives it that special touch that rounds out the design of any room and really makes you feel at home. Here are a few simple and easy-to-do decorating ideas with sunflowers. It is sunflower season after all!

Take 5 to 10 sunflowers cut them at different hights and place them in a high vase (at least about 16 inches in hight). Make sure you use a rather robust and heavy vase, otherwise it will tip over because of the weight of the sunflowers’ heads.

A table cloth in an earthy tone works well with sunflowers and enhances their fresh yellow tone. You do not even need any further filler flowers our greenery. However, if you still have some black-eyed susans in your back yard, add them to the sunflowers to create a wonderful wild flower arrangement.

I love using old fashioned milk bottles, which you can usually get at farm stores or farmer’s markets, to display flowers in. A series of bottles placed next to one another in a row is always a good design element. Since milk bottles belong into the kitchen, this is where I placed the flowers on my windowsill. And please don’t cut them all at the same length. They are not supposed to look like a regiment of soldiers.

Now, there is no room in the house, where flowers would be out of place. Here another simple use of sunflower stems in narrow elegant vases (Ikea), displayed on the bathroom countertop.

Finally, a quiet dinner party on a late summer evening. For the center piece, simply take a large glass bowl, fill it to 1/4 with water, cut the sunflowers right underneath their heads and just float them on the water. A few floating candles would give the whole setting a very elegant note. Use your left-over sunflowers, again cut them right underneath the head, cover the cut surface with paper or aluminium foil in order to not get dirt on your napkins or dinner ware and arrange them on the plate.

Have a sunny day!

This continues our short tutorial on European style flower bouquets. Last time (please see our blog from August 27th on “Flower Bouquet Making in the European Style”), I described the basics of hand-tied flower bouquet making. Today’s post is about color.

You might have heard of theory of colors before. According to the theory, the primary colors are:

Yellow
Blue
Red
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The secondary colors are:

Orange (yellow + red)
Green (blue +yellow)
Purple (red + blue)
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Complementary colors are those opposite of one another in the secondary color wheel. The basic pairs are:

Yellow and purple
Orange and blue
Red and green

Analogous colors are those adjacent to one another in a 12-part color wheel.

The above information helps you to determine which colors harmonize with one another in your flower bouquet. Color harmony can be described as creating a perfect balance in the visual experience. All complementary color pairs achieve great color harmony, as do analogous colors.

Oftentimes you can observe color harmony in flowers.

Complementary colors:

The flowers shown are Iris. Dark purple and yellow are complementary colors.
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The flowers shown are Montecasino Asters. Light purple and yellow are also complementary colors.

Analogous colors:

The flowers shown are Gerbera. Yellow, light orange and dark orange are analogous colors.

The flowers shown are Dahlia. Green, yellow and orange are analogous colors.

Here are some flower bouquet examples featuring complementary and analogous colors:


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To be continued… the next post in this series on European style flower bouquets is about the right use of vases! Happy arranging!

You may think of apples as the traditional gift for teachers in the US. But, in China, gift giving is more formalized in a holiday called Teacher’s Day. It turns out that flowers are the most popular gift for teachers according to this article from China News:

Sept. 9 is China’s 22nd annual Teacher’s Day. “What gift should my first-grade son give to his teachers?” This question, posed by one boy’s father on an education online forum, has aroused a heated discussion. The issue affects not only students and parents but also teachers.

China has a long tradition of expressing thankfulness to teachers by giving gifts. Even Confucius, China’s most honored teacher and philosopher, was said to have gladly accepted gifts of dried meat from his students. First celebrated in 1985, China’s Teacher’s day is considered a good opportunity to say thank you for teacher’s contribution. On this day, most students offer gifts to their teachers.

Flowers are the most common gift. But as the popularity of flowers keeps growing, their price also surges around Teacher’s Day. According to a report in Thursday’s West China Metropolis Daily, the most expensive bouquet for sale on the Internet costs 999 yuan.

The report also said that bouquets are still a popular gift despite their high price. Mr. Zhang, the manager of Xin Yuan Flower shop in Chengdu, said he has received more than 100 orders for Teacher’s Day bouquets.

Parents agreed that gifts should be refined as well as small in size. It has become a fashionable trend nowadays to give teachers gifts like Mp3 players or cosmetics, or even VIP gym memberships.

Some parents complain that Teacher’s Day gifts are too expensive. But they still spend the money out of fear that teachers would neglect their children if they do not give a gift.

While parents rack their brains to come up a brilliant idea of what to buy, teachers who are worried about gift-giving’s association with bribery are trying to figure out how to politely refuse expensive gifts without disappointing the students.

One primary school teacher expressed her dilemma during an interview with China News Service, saying that if she refuses gifts, parents might mistake this for a show of contempt.

Another supervisory teacher said that she felt awkward scolding a misbehaving boy after she had earlier accepted his Teacher’s Day gift.

In response to the father’s question on the forum, some people suggested that students simply send a mobile phone text message or a greeting card, which is convenient and doesn’t cost much. One mother also explained how she told her son to draw a nice picture and write a kind message to his teacher on it.

Some teachers responded favorably to these suggestions, saying that those simple and sincere gifts are most welcome.