Surely, a festive fireplace is not only for Christmas! Let's have some festiveness in the summer as well !!! You can use the following idea for floral decorations in general, or for flowers on a table or when you are stuck and wondering how to create flower arrangements.
If you don't have a Clematis Montana at the moment , you can use the idea also with other climbers - ivy combine with big bunches of cow-parsley ( all for free along the side of the road- ) for a lovely rustic summery effect- or climbing roses.
By the by, can I recommend to plant a Clematis Montana ? You will soon have long trails of tendrils and flowers to spare for any decoration you would like to put your hand to in the near future.
Here you see how big Clematis Montana can become- you really won't miss a few tendrils !
Just cut some long lenghts of festoons of flowers- wrap the ends to keep them fresh in
wet tissue paper, then in aluminium foil like below- and your strings of flowers are ready to be used.
And you can start with the decorating ! I used both Clematis Montana AND Wisteria, as the pink and the mauve of these two climbers were both echoed in the painting above the fireplace..so look for what colours you have in your painting or mirror and fireplace you want to decorate, and try to find a climber that will compliment it colour-wise.
Here you can see a detail of the fireplace-mantel- on which I had also draped some Wisteria tendrils which were kept fresh in some £1,- " Souvenir from Margate" Victorian kitsch-y vases I picked up from a charity shop.( The inscriptions I turned to the wall and the back of the vase is quite refreshingly white and super- sweet .)
And here is a side- detail with the clematis tendrils. Just manoeuvre the end of the tendrils behind the picture or mirror around which you wrap the flower garland.
You can use some of the tendrils of Clematis Montana to decorate some moss topiary pots to tie it all together and get more height in the display, together with some candelabras.....
How you make these topiary moss- pots, you can read in this post by the way .
( I will do a later post about how to make the clematis- moss- pots).
Here you can see the wildness and rusticity of the display a bit better- although sadly, there is a bit of flash .
Give it a go- it's great fun- and it will cheer you up to end to look at something so festive- and all for practically nothing!!
Happy ( floral ) decorating !!
I hope I have given you some ideas how to create flower arrangements!