Grocery Store Arrangement Lesson (38 min)

Sarah Ryhanen takes on a long-requested challenge: creating a Saipua-inspired arrangement using only grocery store flowers and foraged winter remnants.

"You can really go out into the woods, the hedgerows, the side of the road, and find interesting things to elevate and make something mundane feel really special," she says.

This is an exercise in composition, but also in perception. How do you find beauty in the overlooked? How do you coax something refined from the raw and the unremarkable? How do you trust the process, even when you doubt the materials?

She begins by considering the strengths and pitfalls of four different foundation options. 

While adding flowers she considers whether pedestrian carnations, so often dismissed, can take on a quiet elegance with the right placement.

"I still want to make something that looks like Saipua, but it becomes a challenge when I don’t have any of my Saipua paint in the paint box," Sarah says as she studies the materials in front of her.

Sarah invites us into her process, not just the technical decisions, but the inner dialogue that shapes them. The hesitation, the recalibration, the moment she wonders if the whole thing is going to fall apart. And then, the shift. The small adjustments that make it work. The unexpected color relationships. The relief of watching something come together.

This is about floristry, but it’s also about how we see. It’s about working with what’s in front of us to create beauty instead of longing for something else.

Sarah would love to see what you create, inspired by this lesson. Share photos, videos, and other reflections in the comments below!

In This Lesson:

• What to look for when buying grocery store flowers & what to avoid

• Foraging for winter’s “secret greens” when the landscape seems bare

• Selecting mossy branches and using them like flowers

• Examples of starting with four different foundations

• Why negative space is just as important as the flowers themselves

• Using the color of your vase to bring two different palettes together

• How to bend tulip stems by hand and create elegant movement

• How to work with color like a painter to create richness and depth

• Trusting that something beautiful is taking shape, even when it doesn’t seem like it

Looking for the short TV episode about grocery store arrangements? Find it here.