>> "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by... Albertsons Companies... with additional support from the following... CalFlowers... Dollar Tree... Sunshine Bouquet.

♪ >> Today on "Life in Bloom," we're featuring a timeless flower, the sunflower.

I'll make several arrangements using this popular bloom, create three-dimensional wall art, and I'll visit a clever baker who creates exquisite flower cookies and more.

♪ ♪ I'm J Schwanke.

Welcome to "Life in Bloom."

Few flowers immediately lift the spirit the way sunflowers do.

They're bright and cheery, as warm and inviting as their namesake, the sun.

Their brilliant yellow petals, also known as rays, form a sun-like appearance that has made them a crowd favorite, especially in the summer months.

♪ Sunflowers have become iconic due in part to the sunflower series by Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.

Letters to his brother Théo indicate creating the vivid oil paintings brought van Gogh much joy.

♪ Sunflowers continue to be a constant inspiration for fashion, home interiors, crafting, and more.

♪ With the advent of social media, many seek out golden fields of them growing in the summer for irresistible selfies.

♪ ♪ Today's project is all about topiaries.

We'll start with our sunflowers.

This is easy, because sunflowers naturally make themselves into a topiary form.

So, we've got our beautiful sunflowers.

We're gonna gather them up, and notice how the heads start to form.

So, we continue to add them in.

I just look at the shape and form of the sunflowers as I'm putting them into my hand.

♪ That collection's gonna look great.

We'll take our bind wire.

It's a craft covered wire.

We're simply gonna wrap it around underneath the blooms.

♪ Gonna make a band with that bind wire so that it's decorative as well, and it's gonna support the stems.

♪ Tie it off.

We want to make sure it's secure at the top.

♪ That looks great.

And that's about the length we're gonna want it.

So, you know how we cut a stem so that it has a sharp angle?

We're gonna treat this as one big stem, and we're gonna cut it at an angle.

♪ So it's just like a smaller stem, and it's gonna push into the foam easily.

♪ Now, we'll take our other sunflowers and we'll arrange them around the bottom.

♪ You get the idea of how that's gonna come together.

Now let's do something different with the tree fern.

♪ I'm gonna take the stems, and I'm gonna gather them up in my hand the same way that I gathered up those sunflower heads...so that all the foliage is falling up towards the top.

♪ We use our bind wire again.

♪ And we're gonna wrap it right around where we were holding those.

♪ I like having a broad little band, because it holds everybody together tightly.

So, now we'll trim it up.

Just like giving it a hair cut.

♪ So, now we have a perfect little topiary shape.

Again, we're gonna cut that at an angle.

♪ And then we'll go directly into our container with that.

♪ We'll fill in around the base of our sunflower topiary using other sunflowers.

Next, we'll take four sunflowers and place them around the base of our tree fern topiary.

♪ Now I've got two other containers, and these three containers will stack.

Our first container we'll fill in using sunflowers.

♪ The next one, we'll grab little bundles of tree fern and place those into the foam all the way around and trim it off.

♪ Then I'll grab a small bundle of tree fern, bind it off, and trim it up.

We'll add it in between the topiary base and the topiary top so that we have tree fern in both our arrangements.

Sunflowers and topiary tops -- it all goes together so well.

♪ So, I'm so excited for you to meet my friend Kara Bolt from Cyclops Bakeshop.

I fell in love with you through your cookies.

I mean, your cookies, the first time I saw your cookies, I was walking through the farmer's market and I -- like, my head jerked around and they were zinnias.

And I was just like, "I have to have them," and they were, like, all different colors and I bought all different colors.

So, you've been doing this a year and a half... >> Mm-hmm.

>> ...and you end up in national magazines with your radishes.

I love the-- I bought these.

I bought these, I bought the asparagus.

I mean, I thought of "let's do sunflowers," and you were like, "Okay, send me some pictures," and then this is what happens.

So, where do you get your inspiration?

Where does that come from?

What are you looking for?

>> Um, I mean, I kind of just -- My brain is just like a cookie brain I guess, because I just see things and I'm like, "Oh, that would be a funny cookie" or like, "Oh, I wonder how that would look as a cookie."

And, you know, sometimes I make them and they turn out terrible and no one ever sees them.

>> Are there pictures of those?

>> No.

>> Oh, okay.

>> I, like, throw them away.

Um, but, yeah.

I just -- I don't know.

I think the more that you, like, do something, the more your brain is just, like, attuned to finding those, you know, things.

>> So, let's talk about the cookies then.

So, these are vegan cookies.

So what made you say, "Okay, I'm gonna do these cookies, these fabulous cookies, and I'm gonna make them vegan"?

>> You know, I personally am vegan, and, you know, everyone's like, on their own journey.

I'm not here to, like, judge other people and things like that.

But I think, like, if you have the opportunity to choose something that, you know, involves less, like, animal harm, it's probably a better option.

And so I just wanted to do something that, like, reflected my own personal values.

So I chose to make them vegan.

>> Okay, so, I thought we would decorate.

So show people how you decorate the cookies.

>> Sure.

>> And maybe I would try it with your coaching and see how -- see how well I do with that.

So, yeah, show us what you do.

♪ >> Have you decorated cookies before?

>> Poorly.

[ Laughter ] I mean, at Christmas, I -- Okay, Christmas, I do the royal frosting and then I do the sprinkles.

>> Yeah.

>> That's what I do.

>> That's great.

>> [ Chuckles ] It's not like this.

>> Um...

So, the good thing about these is that they're an organic shape, so even if you mess up, it's not a big deal.

>> Oh, okay, I get it.

>> Most of the cookies I do involve flooding, which is like putting down a really soft layer first and then going back over it, but these are, like, really structural, so this is a little bit different.

>> So, you make your own frosting.

>> Yep.

So, I use -- So, typical royal icing uses egg whites, but I use the liquid from a can of chickpeas 'cause it has a similar protein structure and you can whip it into, like, meringue.

So that's how it hardens is through that.

>> Alright.

And why it's even.

>> Right.

So, then you're just gonna go back over.

>> What's your most popular cookie?

>> I have definitely done a lot of avocados.

People really like those.

>> Oh, right.

Your avocados are adorable.

>> Honestly, any, like, pop culture.

It's interesting to see -- >> You do interesting pop culture stuff.

>> Yeah.

It's interesting to see what people, like, connect with.

Sometimes cookies, I'm like, "Oh, this is gonna be great," and then everyone's like, "What is that?"

So it just -- It kind of just depends.

So, yeah.

This is just -- You can pretty much do whatever you want at this point.

Just adding color, and generally the more detail something has, the more interesting it is.

You want to try?

>> I do -- I have been dying to try, but yeah.

So let's see what happens.

>> Okay.

>> Alright.

>> Okay, so people have different ways of holding their bags.

Um, this is what I generally do.

>> Okay.

Alright.

>> But you can kind of... >> So, okay, got it.

I see.

Okay.

'Cause I've got to keep that out of the way so it doesn't run into stuff, right?

>> Right.

>> Okay.

It wants to go.

Oh, so you want to be -- 'cause -- Oh, okay.

♪ >> Yeah.

There you go.

>> Uh-huh.

♪ ♪ ♪ So, we have a tradition on "Life in Bloom."

Because you came to share your fabulous cookies with me, I made you a flower crown.

>> Oh, thank you.

It's beautiful.

>> So, yeah, let's see how well I did.

>> Is that hosta?

>> Yes.

There are hosta.

There's marigolds.

There's lilies.

>> Wow.

>> So, I didn't have sunflowers, but I had pretty little gerbera daisies.

>> Thank you.

>> Here we go.

Oh, that's pretty.

See?

That looks good.

>> Thank you.

>> Yeah.

Thank you so much for coming and sharing what you do so well, and I appreciate the fact that you came to be on the show.

>> Thanks for having me.

I appreciate it, too.

>> You're very welcome.

♪ I love a party, and it's fun to have a garland of flowers running down the center of the table.

It's easy to create with sunflowers and ribbon.

You can start with a premade garland of foliage or even repurpose a Christmas garland.

No one would know.

I like to use three different kinds of ribbon.

I use tints, tones, and shades of yellow and run out an ample length of each.

Then I simply use a bamboo skewer to push the ribbon into the garland, making big loops.

♪ And then it's time to add the sunflowers.

Sunflowers can last quite a long time out of water, so I can add them right before the party.

Or if I need more longevity, I can place them into a water tube.

Placing the sunflowers where I've gathered the ribbon looks like the flowers are holding the ribbon in place.

♪ ♪ To make the flowers last even longer, I can spray the entire garland with an antitranspirant to reduce evaporation.

♪ Now all that's left is to set the table and bring on the party.

♪ ♪ Sunflowers are fun to arrange with, but it's also fun to work with flowers that are reminiscent of sunflowers, and then we can play with texture and scale in our arrangement.

Let me show you how it's done.

♪ ♪ Using yellow foliage like coleus or yellow Lysimachia flowers mimics the color of the sunflower... while flowers like coreopsis, coneflower, and daisies echo the shape and form of the sunflower.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ As far back as 3,000 BC, Native Americans grew sunflowers for medicine, oil, and food.

♪ The seeds of the sunflower are highly nutritious and are a rich source of protein, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, and vitamin E. ♪ Sunflowers need at least six to eight hours of sunlight a day, but time is ideal.

♪ The flower buds display a unique behavior called heliotropism.

They gradually move to follow the sun's position in the sky as it moves through the day from east to west.

♪ Sunflowers are typically yellow but can also be purple, orange or red or even a mix of these hues.

♪ Sunflowers range in height from one foot for dwarf varieties to giant varieties more than 10 feet tall.

♪ Sunflowers are inspirational.

They brighten up any space.

But what if you wanted to use them to decorate your home or office?

Permanent or silk flowers are wonderful stand-ins for fresh flowers when fresh are either not available or sometimes not practical for a situation.

Even principles of fêng shui allow for silk flowers or images of flowers to substitute for fresh flowers.

These stand-ins also provide similar health and wellness benefits.

I could arrange these stems in a vase, but I asked myself, "What can I craft with these permanent flowers that isn't practical or possible with fresh flowers?"

So, today we'll make a piece of art that we can hang on the wall.

I'm using a square of Styrofoam, and we're gonna place our permanent sunflowers into that Styrofoam, and we'll make a framed piece we can hang on the wall.

We'll also add a ribbon accent around the outside and use some moss to fill in between the sunflower heads.

It's great, 'cause we're able to glue these heads directly to the Styrofoam exactly where we want them.

So it's a fun project that you can do with your kids.

Hot glue is the only thing that you're gonna use.

I prefer a low-temp glue gun because it's safer for everybody.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Armatures are quite the rage when it comes to flower designing.

I like to make armatures the easy way.

They can be very intricate and be very time consuming, but I like to have something that's simple that looks great when we're done.

Today, we're gonna create our armature out of curly willow.

And we're gonna use it by placing it over the top of the container and then clamping them together using small pieces of the flat wire.

I've cut off little pieces from the regular bolt, and we'll use those to attach our armature.

We'll start with a couple pieces that have the most interesting turns to them, placing them over the top of our container...and getting them situated just about where we want them.

We connect the pieces together simply by taking the flat wire and wrapping it around the curly willow branches.

♪ We bind our connection points together by folding the flat wire around them.

That's an easy way to make the connections wherever we want them to be.

♪ Wrapping the curly willow around the vase helps me grip it to the container.

Placing vertical stems inside the vase into the water, and then binding them to the structure that goes horizontally helps create stability and also a vertical interest for the overall arrangement.

♪ Although it begins to look complex, the technique of binding the stems together with a flat wire is still very easy.

The armature can go together very quickly, or you can take time and create a wonderful artistic representation as well.

♪ Today, we're using a selection of sunflowers, Pincushion Protea, kangaroo paw, and Craspedia yarrow, or globe yarrow.

I've also got a couple pieces of ribbon aspidistra that we'll use as well.

So, we'll use a few of these flowers to accent our armature structure.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ This is a great way to enjoy a few flowers from the garden or a local farmer's market.

In addition, the structure can be created from just about any type of branch.

♪ ♪ I hope our journey through sunflowers has resulted in a sunny disposition.

I know they always bring me cheer.

Whether you grow them in your garden, pick them up at the farmer's market, or gaze into artwork, be sure to take a moment to bask in their golden glow.

For "Life in Bloom," I'm J Schwanke.

>> Um, I have a surprise for you, by the way.

>> Stop it.

Okay.

I love surprises.

>> Okay.

♪ >> Stop it.

>> This is you as a cookie.

>> It is me as a cookie!

'Cause that's what you do!

Oh, my God.

>> And I actually brought this one so that you can decorate yourself.

>> Nice.

>> If you would like.

>> Oh, sure.

Let's do that.

>> Okay.

>> Let me try.

Okay.

So I need...Let's see.

I guess I need -- I need a nose, right?

Yeah.

Is that where I start?

>> That's where I start, yeah.

>> Okay.

"J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is filmed in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

>> "J Schwanke's Life in Bloom" is brought to you by... Albertsons Companies... with additional support from the following... CalFlowers... Dollar Tree... Sunshine Bouquet.

♪ Closed-caption funding provided by Holland America Flowers.

♪ For everything flowers, recipes, projects, and more information, visit ubloom.com.

♪