Terrific Tuesdays: Beidermeier Floral Designs

Arrangement in the Biedermeier style

So, did you look at this post title and say “Beider what?” Never fear, Biedermeier will be explained. The story behind this post is when I was in college I was a floral design major, and I did a semester long study on floral design in the Biedermeier period. I really learned a lot. To date myself, this research was done before there was anything on Biedermeier on the internet. So, long hours were spent pouring over books about the Biedermeier period.

Biedermeier (pronounced bē-dər-mī(-ə)r) is defined as a style of unostentatious furniture and interior decoration popular especially with the middle class in early 19th century Germany. The floral designs that came of  this period were very simple, but beautiful. They were made with concentric circles of florals and foliage, usually in posey holders. This was because there was not a central sewage system in most towns these days. So, ladies would hold these bouquets up to their nose to keep from smelling the odors.

During my study, I created many arrangements of this style. Today I am going to share an arrangement I put together in the Biedermeier style.

Tools:

• Two types of flowers and a type of foliage. Make sure the flowers are two distinct colors (so the rings can be distinguished)
• sharp knife
• container
• raffia (or something to tie your bouquet)

The first step is fill your container with warm water.

Then, in one hand, form a bouquet out of the flowers you have chosen for the middle of your bouquet. Then tie them with raffia.

Cut the stems of the tulips at an angle with your knife, and place them in the water.

Make a cuff around the tulips with your foliage.

Next create a center ring with your other flowers. Put them in the arrangement at an angle to help them form a distinct ring.

Voila! A beautiful arrangement that only took about 20 minutes from start to finish (maybe even just 10 minutes).

You can see the rings from this shot:

This is very easy and really anyone can do it!