Hi, Donna--It's taken me a while to get back on line and answer you. As to where I use these arrangements, I generally use artificial flowers as I would real ones--mostly in arrangements in each room of my house, keeping the scale of the room in mind. I try not to overdo the number of arrangements in a room. I don't want the house to look like a funeral parlor! I do a little decorating on the side; and, in clients' homes, I do the same thing.
I've also used artificial arrangements in altar flowers for weddings and in a gift of altar flowers to my church. In the case of weddings, I do NOT recommend artificial flowers for bouquets. They do, however, look really good (if done right) on and near the altar. They are far enough away from the congregation not to be scrutinized too closely.
My church is pretty small and has a tight budget. Buying fresh flowers each week would be too costly. As a result, we had a couple of small evergreen potted plants taking the place of any flowers. These plants were too small--not in scale with the size of the sanctuary. So, I made a couple of large scale artificial arrangements. This past week, I added a few more flowers to the original arrangements; and it occurred to me that you could add and subtract flowers from such an arrangement to keep it "refreshed." People tell me these arrangements look real.
Something I do that probably adds to the "real" look--I almost never leave the stems of artificial flowers straight. Mother Nature usually produces a few twists and curves in her stems, so, I try to mimic those twists and curves. There are a couple of exceptions like cala lillies and gerber daises--their stems usually stay pretty straight, although, a bit curved, in real life.
Another point about artificial flowers is to BE CAREFUL ABOUT COLOR. Try to choose natural colors. For instance, blue roses just scream FAKE. (Yes, I know, some real flowers can be dyed, but I usually don't like those either.) And, to me, flowers with the fake dew drops are a bit cheesy; but I guess that could be a matter of taste. Something else cheesy: fake flowers on graves and in flower beds. I'd rather see dead flowers on a grave than muddy, dusty plastic flowers. To me, plastic flowers in a grave yard just look like someone is not planning to visit the grave ever again. And, fake flowers in a flower bed, well . . . what can I say? They just look odd. I guess part of it is that you'd have to use plastic outside to stand up to the weather, and plastic flowers just are NOT artful.
Another tip: A man in my Sunday school class who is a landscape architect pointed out that most artificial trees come in pots that would not support the trees' actual size, if the trees were alive. So, if you use an artificial tree, place its original pot in a larger pot and put some rocks or peat moss over the "ground" to disguise the original pot. With trees, too, you can often bend the branches to make them look more realistic.
In your article, you addressed the question of cleaning artificial flowers. You can dust them pretty well with a soft make-up brush, but this is a SLOW process. A lot of times I just blow the dust off with a deep breath. Sometimes I'll just dismantle an arrangement and shake all the flowers, then redo the arrangement. I've been pretty rough with them, and mostly they stand up to the abuse. If the dust won't shake off, I have even hand-washed the flowers in cold water. This is a last resort, though. You never know if they are color-fast. Once in a while, you just have to throw out some artificial flowers. Nothing lasts forever!
Fun talking to you.
