Foraging for Ikebana Material

Creating ikebana with children doesn’t require expensive vases or flowers. While on holidays in Galicia, we were amazed at the amount of lush green plant material growing by the roadside and in the vacant lots near the farmhouse where we were staying.

Foraged Morning Glory and self-made vases.

Inspired by the abundance of material, my daughters and I set out in the cool of the early morning to collect Morning Glory flowers. As we returned to the farmhouse, we realised that we didn’t have suitable vases to create ikebana arrangements. Inspired by Christine Donck-Guelton (@ikebanachristine), one of my classmates in Ilse’s International Teacher’s class, we created ikebana vases from reused plastic water bottles.

Adding a leaf inside the vase.

My daughters placed small stems of Morning Glory leaves inside their vases and added water.

Adding a flower

Once they were happy with the placement of the leaves, they added a flower and used the curves in their vases to help support their material.

Using the curves in their vases as a structure to help support the Morning Glory.

Once they were happy with their individual arrangements, we decided to place them together to form a larger arrangement with more movement, and depth.

Placing the vases together to form a larger arrangement with more movement and depth.