Floral decorations, minimalist model

The big family celebration I attended this week was, of course, the occasion for giving plenty of flowers to the person being celebrated, so, at the day´s end, there were more than a dozen big floral arrangements standing in my relatives´ living room, made from beautiful flowers and some of them so full that it was difficult to find a vase big enough to hold them.
Apart from the fact that the recipient rightly pointed out that she´d rather have had one bouquet at a time for a longer period of time, instead of having the room full of flowers for a week or so and then nothing, what struck me when looking at this abundance was that the sheer amount of flowers did actually make less of an impact than a single bouquet, and that the most visually interesting arrangements, to me, were those that showcased just a few exquisite blooms, while the ones that were made from many flowers were, in comparison, looking a lot less interesting.
It´s a mistake I used to make with the floral arrangements at home, too. I used to have several silk flower bouquets that were filling their respective containers to the limit. When I started to minimalize my decor, these went out and weren´t replaced.
What I did wrong when making them was thinking that I had to have a lot of flowers for a bouquet, when really the sheer mass of blooms would be looking so cluttered that the beauty of the individual flower had no chance at all to be seen and appreciated.
Once again, it´s the question of enough versus too much.
So, when I had the chance of visiting a shop close to where my relatives live that has the most stunningly lifelike  silk flowers, I decided to try a different approach this time. No more than three of the same kind, and some greenery or branches for a background. It´s not Ikebana minimalist, but the resulting arrangements look a lot better than what I used to have. And they sure brighten up our apartment in this dreary weather.
The best thing about those flowers is that they will, being made of silk, last a long time, so the investment I made when buying them is also sustainable. Real flowers are beautiful, too, but for decorating my home I prefer silk flowers- they don´t spoil, need no care except dusting from time to time, and, considering the high prices of real flowers, give you a lot more mileage for your bucks than the real ones.
And I don´t think I´ll tire of the new arrangements the way I had been visually tired by the old ones.


Julia