The wrap is the part people get wrong, and it is the part that makes a bouquet look bought rather than assembled. The good news is that it is a sequence rather than a skill.
You need two sheets of kraft, one sheet of tissue or cotton paper in a colour, a length of ribbon about a metre long, and a small water tube or a square of plastic and an elastic band.
Build the bunch first
Hold the stems in one hand and add each new stem at an angle, always turning the bunch the same way. This is a spiral and it is the only technical thing here. Done correctly, every stem crosses the others at the same point and the bunch will stand up on a table by itself.
Bind at that crossing point with string, tight enough to hold and no tighter. Then cut all the stems to the same length below the bind, at an angle, under water if you can manage it.
The water source
Wrap the cut ends in a damp piece of paper towel, then a square of plastic, then band it. Or use a water tube per stem for something small.
Skip this and the bouquet is dying from the moment you hand it over. It is also the step almost nobody does at home.
The wrap itself
Lay the first kraft sheet as a diamond, point towards you. Put the tissue on top of it, offset by a few centimetres so a band of colour shows along the top edge.
Lay the bunch diagonally across it with the heads towards the upper corner and the bind roughly in the centre of the paper.
Fold the near corner up over the stems, then bring the left side across the bunch and hold it at the bind. Bring the right side across the other way and hold it at the same point. Two folds, both meeting at the bind.
Add the second kraft sheet from behind if you want more body, and tie everything at the bind with the ribbon.
The two mistakes
The first is wrapping too tight. The paper should stand away from the flowers and hold a shape, like a collar. Squeezed in against the heads it looks like a shopping bag and it bruises petals.
The second is cutting the paper too small. A wrap wants to be considerably bigger than seems reasonable — the sheet should extend well past the heads at the top. Almost every home wrap we are shown fails on this one.
Tie the ribbon at the bind and cut the ends on a diagonal.
If it looks slightly too big and slightly too loose, it is right.
