Sometimes I see a certain flower or a particular vessel and just have to create some pretty.

When the first shipment of coral charm peonies arrived at the store I knew that I had to make a centrepiece to showcase them. Paired with the perfect blue compote bowl from Daisy Maude and some complimentary shades of coral, I was all set to begin.

I want to share with you what I made and some really helpful tips on how to use a floral frog to replace floral foam.

To create your own arrangement with a floral frog you’ll need the items on this list.

Start with a clean footed compote. It’s best to use a bit of sticky putty on the base of your frog to secure to the glass. I chose a frog that is about three inches in diameter. You can use either the hairpin frog or the cage frog to create this look. The cage frog works well for thicker steams such as the hydrangeas.

There are so many benefits to working with a frog over foam:

• Floral foam doesn’t break down and is not environmentally friendly
• The dust off of the floral foam can be hazardous for the designer
• The floral foam is not forgiving with flowers – you can not place and replace flowers without breaking the foam
• Foam can break soft stem flowers
• Foam can clog the stems of flowers

This arrangement will be slightly one-sided with the focus being on the front of the arrangement. I started with my largest flowers, which were the hydrangeas. I cut them fairly low with the one in the front lower and I placed the second slightly higher at the back of the arrangement. I’m using the hydrangeas to create the base of the arrangement with the rest of the flowers floating on top of them. Make sure to cut the stems of your hydrangeas on a good angle with sharp floral shears or a knife. Open up as much of the stem as possible for the hydrangea to drink. You may find that if you don’t use putty to secure your floral frog that it may get top heavy and fall over with the weight of the hydrangeas. You should be fine if you evenly distribute the weight and place them on opposite sides of the container.

I then placed my stems of spray roses between the hydrangeas, keeping one group low and at the front and moving the others through the middle and into the side. I cut my spray roses slightly taller than the hydrangeas. You can slowly open up the spray roses by slightly bending back the outer petals.

Next, I start adding in some of the true blue eucalyptus. The greens help create more of the shape of the arrangement. I pulled some towards the front, center and down low in the arrangement to the back to balance out all the pieces. The true blue is more of a smokey blue and pairs really nicely with the shades of peach and coral.

Next up, the beautiful coral charm peonies! Seriously, just look at how perfect they are! I cut the stems of the peonies slightly longer than the other flowers, there was no hiding these beauties in this arrangement. I brought one of the peonies low to the front, one in the middle and the other offside near the back. I wanted to draw your eye through the arrangement with the shades of coral.

To add to the light and airiness to this arrangement, I chose to include Queen Anne’s lace. Just a couple of stems incorporated is enough to add some texture and not a dense block of white that would be too busy with the hydrangeas. In place of this, I could have substituted a viburnum or spirea to give me the same look.

Then I added in some silver dollar eucalyptus to soften the look of the true blue eucalyptus. The silver dollar eucalyptus is still the nice smokey blue greenery but with a rounder shape to it. It not as stiff as the true blue and cascades really nicely.

To pull out the coral of the peonies, I added in three stems of the free spirit roses in a couple of shades darker. Make sure to pull off the guard petals. They tend to be darker and sometimes can take away from the softness of the rose. If I wanted to keep the arrangement lighter, I could have used blush peach roses or blush pink, but I like the slight contrast between the rose colour and the peony colour.

Last up is the soft peach of the lovely ranunculus. I just love the texture in the ruffles of these flowers and I adore how they look with the peonies. Both these flowers make me so happy and I can’t get enough of them together. Because the ranunculus are a singular flower and the smallest, I liked pulling them out of the arrangement to showcase how delicate they are. To me, it looks like they are dancing on top of the arrangement.

Because I used the frog instead of the floral foam, all of the flowers are able to drink and it’s very easy to pull out the hydrangeas to give them a fresh cut. With the floral foam, you can’t take out the hydrangeas and insert them back into the same hole in the foam, you have to create a new hole and sometimes when your arrangement is really full, there aren’t any spare spots to use.

Here is my finished product! White with all shades of “Carl”.