"You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret, all the best people are." - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
We absolutely love this quote from Alice in Wonderland, one of our favorite Disney cartoons of all time! We are so excited to be collaborating again this month with A Dream is a Wish Our Blog Makes to bring you another fun Disney themed arrangement just in time for Spring! If you're a Mad Hatter fan, this one is for you: a surreal, tea party themed piece complete with dyed florals and a whimsical Mackenzie-Childs tea kettle for a vase!
Read on to learn how you can bring the magic of Disney into your everyday life this Spring with flowers you can pick-up at your local grocery store, a teapot or other fun vessel, a little floral spray paint (yes, it's a real thing and you can find it at your local craft store!), and some Mad Hatter-style madness to build your own Alice in Wonderland inspired piece.
The first step once you've found your tea kettle vase, is to dye your flowers and foliage to get that wild, whimsical, surreal look Alice in Wonderland is known for. We used two different colors, Design Master Color Tool Floral Spray in Orange and Design Master Color Tool Floral Spray in Purple. You can find Design Master Color Tool Floral Spray in most craft stores or online. It is a fun way to really let you creativity come to life and works on almost all types of flowers and foliage...with a little practice!
First we dyed our leather fern with our orange floral spray. We chose orange because it is very far from what you would expect to find in nature and it matches the Mad Hatter's hair (if you're thinking of the Johnny Depp version!) To dye your flowers and foliage you want to be sure to follow the instructions on the back of the bottle of paint, and hold the can the recommended distance away from whatever you're spraying. Be sure you're in a well-ventilated area, too!
Next we dyed our flowers! There really is no correct way to combine colors, you can let your imagination run wild! Just be sure to follow the instructions on the can of paint, especially with flowers...spraying too close can shock your flowers and cause damage and wilting.
Now that we had created some truly mad flowers and foliage, it was time to build our piece! The rim of the tea kettle is small enough that you don't need to use chicken wire or floral foam to hold your flowers and foliage in place. Start with your foliage to create a general shape for your design.
The foliage also acts as an "armature" to help hold your blooms in place within the rim of the tea kettle. Their sturdy stems can help brace the flowers to be at the position or height that you want. Be sure that whatever you put in can touch the water inside the tea kettle.
Experiment with different heights! Remember: this design should be as whimsical as the Mad Hatter and Wonderland in general. We also incorporated some naturally fun colored flowers like delphinium which has a bright blue tone, some bright yellow mums and some cute poms. The result was something truly surreal and perfect for Spring!
We hope you've enjoyed this adventure into how you can incorporate the wild and whimsy of Alice and Wonderland and Disney into your everyday life with the magic of flowers! Stay tuned for more Disney collaborations with A Dream is a Wish Our Blog Makes!
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