Shilpa Reddy Flower Design

I get asked this all the time… how do I make flowers look like they’re floating? ✨🌸

What’s actually happening is simple: the structure is completely hidden inside the foliage, so your eye just follows the flowers naturally without ever seeing what’s supporting them.

In this design I’ve used soft, fluffy smokebush (one of my favourites — the candy floss of the floral world!) along with some foliage from my own garden to give it a natural, whimsical feel.

⚠️A little safety note if you’re inspired to try something like this:

* Always use a proper stepladder for overhead installs (not a chair like me!)
* Keep smokebush well away from naked flames as it’s highly flammable. (The candles here were only used for the final shot).

And if you’re just starting out in floristry, welcome to our flower family!
Comment FLOWERS and I’ll send you the details of our Home Studio Florist digital course.
It’s designed to help you build confidence and get the foundations right so you can start creating at home.

If you’re dreaming of installations like this, we also teach more advanced work on our Career Courses in London.

💛 Let me know what tablescape you’d like to see me create next!

How to spiral a bouquet without the hand cramps! 🕊️✨

A hand-tied bouquet usually means clutching a heavy bundle of stems until you tie it—which gets exhausting if you’re new to the technique!

This work-around was inspired by a dear florist friend with arthritis.
She wanted an easy way to keep creating beautiful, big bouquets without the achey hands…

🌸The 3-Step Setup:

The Grid: Push kebab sticks into pieces of craft foam to make a 3x3 grid over your bouquet vase.

The Technique: Slide your stems in diagonally through the squares. If you keep rotating your vase, they automatically cross over into a lovely spiral!

The Reveal: Pull the sticks out when you’re done. Your bouquet stays nicely intact!

Top Tip:
Place your vase on a Lazy Susan/rotating cake table while you create, to keep your stems nicely spiralled.

We love sharing these nifty setups in our hands-on Career Course at our London school, and in our online classes for everyone joining us from afar.
Check the link in our bio to join our flower school family! 🌿

If you’ve been wondering how everyone is doing those viral sunken garden tablescapes… 🕊️✨

It looks like an impossible design trick, but you don’t need a custom build. You just need to pull two dining tables apart.
By hiding a row of low stools down the gap, you create a secret lower deck to pop your potted plants onto, giving you that lush, living landscape right through the middle of the party without losing an inch of space for wine.

Our Studio Tricks:

Fresh Flowers: Tuck individual stems into hidden water vials so they stay perfectly happy all night exactly where you want them.

The Candle Hack: Unscrew the heads of your metal candlestick holders, flip them upside down, and push the stem straight into the plant pots. It creates a brilliant, sturdy base for wide pillar candles.

Ready to steal the rest of our school secrets?
The link in my bio has everything you need to join us at The Home Studio Florist. 🌿
Comment FLOWERS to get my 6-part blueprint, including the exact UK sourcing guides and pricing math to make starting your home studio completely doable this weekend. 🕊️

The Kitchen Whisk Secret. 🍊✨
If you love those light, airy, dancing bouquets but struggle to keep the stems from collapsing into a heavy clump, you just need to check your kitchen drawer.

An inexpensive kitchen whisk makes the most wonderful ‘wire armature’ (as us florists call them) for home arrangements—it gives your flowers instant support while keeping that beautiful, wild negative space.

Three quick rules for this trick:

⭕️Build in circles: Feed your stems diagonally through the very base of the whisk, turning it as you go to form your first ring of flowers. Then, build your next layer just above that one.
🤝Keep your grip: Make sure every new stem stays tucked inside your hand grip so the whole piece stays secure.
💵Go cheap: A budget whisk actually works best because the wires have more “give” for the stems!

I’ve packaged the rest of my favorite home studio secrets inside our digital course, The Home Studio Florist. Comment FLOWERS below and I’ll pop the invite straight over to your DMs so you can start creating with us this weekend! 🕊️

🍊The good news is you don’t need a cupboard full of professional equipment to build something magical! ✨

By letting the fruit hold the stems in place, you get a beautiful blend of both juicy colour and uplifting scent.

Citrus table tips:
• The Towers: I’ve used candlestick holders with a removable top.
• Support: Cocktail sticks are great for joining fruit and supporting flowers.
• Safety & Care: I’m happy with the candle spacing here, but if your flowers are closer to the flames, always add glass cylinder covers.

We love sharing these methods at our London school—but if you’re further afield, I’ve also packaged the rest of my studio secrets into our digital course, The Home Studio Florist, so you can create a bit of magic from home.

Comment FLOWERS below and I’ll pop the invite over to your DMs so you can get started this weekend! 🕊️

I promise I haven’t lost my mind—but if you want a flower headdress with some proper drama, you need to go and grab a sports visor!

If you flip it upside down, it’s actually the most comfortable, sturdy base you’ll ever find.

I just wrap a bit of chicken wire around it, which means you can go as wild as you like with the flowers without the whole thing falling apart.
It’s a total lifesaver for those big, editorial looks.

I know what you’re thinking—how do the flowers stay happy?
For the thirsty ones like tulips, I just tuck in a few tiny water vials.
For everything else, a bit of stem tape to seal in the moisture works wonders. Just keep it somewhere nice and cool until you’re ready to head out and you’re all set.

We’re always playing with these sorts of clever workarounds in our career course at our flower school. It’s exactly the kind of thing we love teaching—how to pull off something that looks incredibly high-end without needing expensive or specialised equipment. 🕊️
Honestly, once you’ve tried the visor trick, you’ll never go back!
weddingflorist

My client said a tulip cascade was impossible... so I showed them this!🌷✨

Wiring trick is a game-changer for any aspiring florist who wants to create that high-end, dramatic length while keeping the bouquet light and effortless.

Many people avoid tulips for bridal work because they have a mind of their own, but once you master this, the possibilities are endless.

We designed this specifically for those breathtaking ceremony shots and the walk down the aisle. It’s significantly lighter than a traditional cascade, allowing the “liquid” movement of the flowers to flow perfectly with a modern wedding dress.

(Pro tip: For designs this delicate, we often create a sturdier “party” bouquet for the bride to switch to before the evening festivities—but for the ceremony, it’s all about this intentional, ethereal movement.)

I share all of these professional breakthroughs and refined methods with my students at our floral school. If you’re ready to start designing with more confidence and master the looks that set you apart, the link to join us is in my bio. 🕊️

Which do you prefer: a classic structured bouquet or this “liquid” movement? Let me know! 🌸

We have a wedding to deliver. They have other plans. 🐑

It’s business as usual today, though the new quality control team is notoriously difficult to please!🐰

We’re currently prepping for one of our favorite seasons—balancing the precision of high-end design with the chaos of the locals.
It isn’t exactly what they teach you in flower school, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Should we put them on the payroll, or is it time for a formal complaint? 🐑🐰

From droopy to dreamy: The secret to a perfect hand-tied bouquet. 💐

If you’re struggling with your hand-ties, it usually comes down to technique, not the flowers themselves. Here are the keys to that professional spiral:

💡 The Pro Tips:
• Soften your grip: Don’t strangle the binding point with all your fingers—give the stems space to spread out.
• The 45° Angle: Always place new stems at a 45° angle against the ones already there to build that perfect spiral.
• Stay consistent: Rotate your bouquet in one direction (clockwise or anti-clockwise—just pick one and stick to it!).
• Add depth: Don’t just build a flat top; tuck some flowers lower down to create shape and interest.

Don’t forget to remove the lower leaves from your flowers before you start!

Want to master the full technique? We’ve broken this down into an easy-to-follow, slow-paced tutorial in our digital course.

Or, if you’d prefer to learn with us in person, we’d love to have you at the school.

Link in bio for all course and class details.

HandTied FlowerArranging

There is a quiet magic in getting stems to defy gravity and just… float.
Modern floristry is all about confidence—playing with shape, space, and form to turn the expected on its head.

We love experimenting with unconventional techniques to construct exactly what we envision.

This is a technique we dive into during the final week of our course, encouraging students to look beyond traditional vases and engineer their own structures. It’s amazing to see how that freedom transforms their work, whether it’s an intimate table setting or a large-scale installation.

I’ll be sharing the incredible work our Flower School students have been creating in Stories soon, so keep an eye out for that!

(And for my fellow florists watching, don’t worry—the stems are thoroughly conditioned beforehand! This is a temporary design for an event, and once the evening is over, they can be popped straight back into water.)