Customer Reviews

Fresh Cuts: Arrangements with Flowers, Leaves, Buds & Branches

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This beautifully photograph laden book has been an inspiration to get me out into nature and my own yard. It shows many diverse plant materials used to create extrodinary arrangements. Edwina's arrangements and anectdotes are amusing and interesting. She shows you how to make an arrangement of common bark that could be a centerpiece at any lavish party or backyard barbecue! I now regularly go out into nature and my own yard to collect leaves, branches and flowers to create my own arrangements.

The author of this book is a garden designer not a floral designer, and there is a big difference. To me, two stems of Casablanca lilies by themselves in a vase (page 95) is not an arrangement worthy of two pages in a book. There was not one arrangement in the pages that I found to be anything other than leaves or sticks in a pot or jar. The arrangements were pretty and simple, yes, but the photography was really what this book was about. It couldn't have been about the floral design as there wasn't any.

The simplicity of this book is wonderful. It prooves you can live with beauty by just going outside and finding something you love.

I received this book in the mail today and was pleasantly surprised. Hadn't dared to hope it would be this good. As I turned through it for the first time I found myself "oohing and aahing".

I ordered it as a possible source of inspiration and reference material for drawing/painting and I was definitely not disappointed this time. I have been disappointed before, many times, by books that seem to show nothing much except blossoms. Hardly a leaf or stem, let alone a container. (Might as well buy packs of flower seeds for the pictures on them.)

Well, I like leaves, stems, and containers. If you do, too, you will probably like this book. Yes, there are some blooms in it, they just aren't the main focus of the book. After all, there is other beauty in the plant world besides just blossoms!