Montage de Fleurs

This past Monday, I went with my friend (and co-worker), Laurence, and her mom to a flower arrangement class. The theme for the class was to present a gift which was to be included in the arrangement. Sounds interesting enough, right!?!

I picked out a vase which was not too big, yet big enough to hold my little bottle of wine I was using as my "gift". Laurence warned me not to being a big vase because that makes flower arranging a little difficult for first-timers, like myself!

Before I continue on with this story, I will say I am not creative AT ALL. Seriously, no creativity in this brain. I majored in Accounting, for goodness sake, and I am an auditor. That should say enough!

So, this is what I started with...my vase, wine, and a knife to cut my flowers.
There were 11 people (all Belgian, except for me) in the class. Did I mention that the class was all in French?? Well, it was! Thanks goodness for Laurence who was my translator!! Anyway, we were all given a bucket of flowers to use for our arrangement.The next step was to put the soaked "mousse" into the vase. Yes, they called the green stuff that you put in the bottom of a vase to stick your flowers into, "mousse". I seriously have no idea what we call it in America (I am not crafty, remember), but I got a good laugh out of calling it "mousse", especially since we are in Belgium...home of chocolate!!

Anyway, the mousse was placed in my vase and cut to fit. I then put in the bottle of wine. Good job, Tippa!

Then, I sat there. And sat there. And sat there some more as I stared at my bottle of wine, mousse, and vase. I had no idea what to do next. I had no clue what I wanted to do....what flowers to choose...nothing. So, I sat. And laughed. And sat.

I thought about wrapping flowers around the bottle, so I tried that with some wire that was really tacky. See it below...tacky and not working!So I decided to leave it and work on something else. I thought the 3 yellow roses looked cute together. I have always heard of decorating in odd numbers. So, I started there. And, I just kept going with the little flowers in the back (don't make me name them!).At this point, I needed some professional help! So, in my southern French accent, I called over the teacher! He thought I was on the right track (yay me!), but saw why i did not like the flowers and wire twisted around the bottle. He recommended a stick! Not just any ole stick, a cool stick!
Ahhh, that helped! Then I added some leaves to cover the mousse!
Now comes more color with these little red berries (or berry-like flowers)! Check out the rolled up leaf look! Love it!
They say that you can spray something on the leaves to make them shine...so I did, just a little too much! So, sometimes, a girl just has to blow!
My creation!! What do you think?
I was so proud of myself for being a good student and blending in with all of the locals. Everyone knew I was obviously not from Belgium, but I tried really hard not to be the 'stupid American' and have everyone going home talking about me.

It all was going great, until...

We were leaving the class after it was over. I picked up my arrangement and the bottle of wine drops out and splatters on the floor!

This is what made it home...
Nice, Tippa, nice.