Allie Elgin

Name: Allie Elgin

Grade: Junior

Years of experience with floral design: 1

Wingspan: What’s your favorite thing about floral design?

Elgin: “I honestly enjoy learning about flowers and making pretty designs, while also being able to harness my creativity in what I do.”

Wingspan: What’s the most difficult part of the class?

Elgin: “I think making everything perfect. I think it’s a common misconception that you can just place flowers anywhere and they will look pretty but there’s so much more behind it.”

Wingspan: Do you think floral design has taught you any skills outside of the class?

Elgin: “I know it’s kind of a little thing but I learned that you are supposed to cut the stems of flowers at a diagonal. I think any sort of flower arrangement I receive or make in the future will benefit from that trick.” 

Wingspan: After taking floral design do you have any respect for the people that do this on a day to day basis?

Elgin: “Yes I would definitely say so. It’s actually really difficult and I couldn’t imagine having to do that on a daily basis.” 

Wingspan: What’s your favorite project that you’ve done this year?

Elgin: “I really liked our rose bush project because we had to use the leftovers off of another project in order to create something. I liked it because we got to put our own creative spin on it instead of just having to follow the instructions to a T.”

Wingspan: How long does each project usually take you? 

Elgin: “Usually the take around the entire class period, aside from some of the projects we had to complete at the beginning of the year like our mums in October. If we stopped in the middle of what we had every time, it would be a struggle to pick up where we started. Thankfully, if it every came to that our flowers can be preserved in the refrigerators in the agriculture room. We did those over two or three weeks because we only had so many class periods and we had to hand make each individual portion of the mum.”

Wingspan: How was the mum decorating project that you completed back in the fall?

Elgin: “It was honestly really fun. There’s usually a braid thing people put on their mums, which you can only buy from the mum shop, but I was taught how to make one on my own. I liked the fact that mine didn’t look like everyone else. There were so many ribbons and staples and globs of hot glue on my mum it was ridiculous, but of course, mums are supposed to be exactly that.”