Faux Flowers

Do you feel creatively challenged, economy minded, and in need of some simple tricks to spruce up your home? Who doesn't? Luckily, Faux Flowers provides a helpful solution to your decorating problems. Floral designer Richard Kollath and author Ed McCann team up to offer even the klutziest among us easy advice on how to achieve lasting elegant, dramatic, or just plain "charming" results with artificial flowers. By incorporating many of the classic principles of flower arranging (start your thinking with the container--not the blooms; use an odd number of stems; strip stems' bottom leaves to prevent cloudy water; always vary stem length to create asymmetry), the book serves as a friendly primer for the beginning floral artist. And yet even the most sophisticated flower arranger will be inspired by the variety and ingenuity of the 100 ideas presented here. Along with its lush photographs by Roy Gumpel, the book offers numerous helpful hints to support its contention that "faux is the way to go." One surprisingly clever sample tip: to enhance the illusion of reality, add water to plastic-stemmed flowers in clear glass containers. --Judy Fireman