Flower Arranging Supplies and answers to your questions about the art of design

Arranged For You, flower arranging supplies and learning
www.arrangingsupplies.com

Answers About Flower Arranging and this site

Do I have to be a business to order?

No. This is a retail site and the products are available to anyone.

How can I order more than one of an item?
How can I change the quantity that I want of something?

Click on Basket Contents, at the left center top of the page in the shopping cart, then type in the correct quantity in the quantity box that corresponds to the item you want to change. Be sure to CLICK UPDATE. You will see the dollar amount will be adjusted to match the new quantity selected. This confirms that you succeeded in changing the quantity.

Why don't you offer free shipping?

There is no such thing as free shipping. The cost of "free" shipping is included in the product prices. At AFY, your shipping cost is weight-based and calculates the distance your package will travel. You choose the means of shipping and the speed. You pay only your fair cost based on your needs.

My order came in a Bar-B-Q box. What's up with that?

Recycling is absolutely the rule here! The boxes used to ship orders are recycled from previous uses. Packing materials are either recyclable or reusable. Many orders are packed using corn starch peanuts that dissolve in water. Hopefully you will reuse or recycle the box after you receive it!

I ordered foam spheres but they don't weigh as much as the website says.

Shippers, including the Postal Service, charge for "dimensional weight" or how much room a package takes up on the truck. Some items, like floral foam, don't weigh much but take up a lot of space. The weight shown is intended to compensate for this shipping cost.

Is Rainbow Foam^® the same as regular Oasis^® Floral Foam?

^{It is completely different but can be used in
many of the same ways as well as some new ways! It can be used wet or
dry. Soaking time is longer with OASIS Rainbow Foam. As with any kind of
floral foam, if you are using it wet, you should let it absorb the water
and not try to rush it. You want it to have time to soak through.
Rainbow foam will take 3-5 minutes to fully saturate.}

^{It is normal for Rainbow foam to drain water.
Add water to your arrangement every day and add it to the TOP of the
foam - not the bottom or to the container. Also, it is much more dense than green floral foam.}

^{Can my garden club get a discount?}

^{Your garden club can apply for

affiliate
status. Whenever your members click on an
Arranged For You
link in your group's website, your club will earn a percentage of your
members' purchase totals. Also, affiliates will receive special offers
and may request bulk pricing for special events or fund raising.}

^{What is Mache?}

^{A mache form is a green paper mache form that
lends strength and stability to floral foam. The patented, segmented
shapes offered by the Smithers Oasis Company help contain water drips,
allowing for display of the designs you make in an upright position.
Shapes like ovals, wreaths, hearts, crosses and squares are offered.
The moisture retaining floral foam provides water to plant material
without need for water tubes in most cases. Some things, like
orchids, will still need water tubes to provide sufficient moisture.
The foam is glued to the mache form.}

^{I belong to a flower arranging group at
our village church. We are keen to find an eco friendly floral foam. Do you
know if such a thing exists?

Whether you are using clear glass, or opaque containers, one of the
easiest and most eco-friendly solutions is to wrap vines into your
container and place stems to be supported among the vines. In glass
containers, the vines become part of the design. It is a great look and
becomes compost! We all love compost.

Another trick is to weave a loose mat of small sticks and position them
across the opening of your container. The matrix supports your stems.

Have you tried the

Perfect Arrangers

? These stainless steel supports are tight at the
bottom, to hold the stems,

and looser at the top to allow for positioning. You would only want to
use them in opaque containers. Although I don't show them online, there
is a commercial size that might be better for large sanctuary flower
arrangements. The commercial size is 3 1/4" x 10" x 4 3/4" and sells for
$39.99.

The large size might be sufficient for your needs. It is 3" x 6 1/2" x 3
5/8" and sells for $24. Nothing to throw away. When your arrangement is
compost, you put this arranger in the dishwasher and then use it again.
While the arrangement is in use, you can lift the entire arrangement out
of the vase, change the water, wash the vase , rinse the stems and put
it back in the vase! Cutting down on the bacterial growth, as you know,
will
give the arrangement added life.

Another trick, if you are not using foam and have short stemmed flowers,
is

water tubes

with an indentation at the bottom that holds a stem or
stick, to raise the flower to the height you want in the design. They
are also good for those flowers, like roses, that hate foam, or to
separate daffodils from your other flowers so that the latex in their
stems doesn't clog up the other stems.}

Where can I find monkey puzzle vine like that featured on the front cover of Betty Belcher's book Creative Flower Arranging?

Florida designer Allan Sykes advises that Monkey Puzzle vine is now classified an endangered. Originally from Costa Rica, it is no longer available. (Sykes was a featured designer at the 2006 National Garden Clubs convention in Orlando, FL).

I have tall skinny vases and I am unable to put foam in the bottom to hold the flowers. What can I do to hold the flowers in place?

There are a few solutions to that dilemma, depending on the diameter of the tall, skinny vase, and whether it is opaque or glass.

You can carefully place a small, round floral pin holder in the bottom of the vase. If it is glass, you can camouflage the pin holder with colored stones or beads.
In a larger diameter opaque container, you could use a Mini Perfect Arranger which has a stainless steel grid to hold the stems.
In a glass container, you could make a grid of transparent waterproof tape across the opening to hold the flowers in the pose you choose.
In an opaque container, you could fill the container with sand or gravel and place a pin cup on top to provide hydration and position shorter stems.

You can also mix tall twigs in with your flower stems to help position them.