Girly Flower Fun

In honor of Girls Day (especially since it isn't a National Holiday like Boys Day on 5/5!), we made special Hina Matsuri arrangements this week in ikebana class. I liked the arrangement because it is colorful and feels springy, it was easy to make and everything carries a special symbolism.

To begin with, we used peach blossoms. As the flower most associated with the holiday, using the pink blossoms made a lot of sense. Here, we used two clusters of branches - a tall set on the left representing the male doll, Emperor or O-dairi-sama and a shorter set on the right representing the female doll, Empress or O-hina-sama.

Two pink sweet peas symbolized the O-hina-sama's feminine kimono while the three purple sweet peas represented the O-dairi-sama's masculine kimono. This symbolism seemed especially apt to me since it matched with tea ceremony where women use red fukusa (silk cloth) and men use purple fukusa.

Using origami adornments, we gave the O-hina-sama an open fan and the O-dairi-sama a folded fan similar to the always-folded fan in tea ceremony that shows respect and politeness and represents being a guest. Neither ikebana-sensei nor any of my fellow students could remember the name of this ceremonial item. If, for some reason, you know what it's called, please clue me in. :)

The three ranunculus (red flowers) in the front represented the three maids/court maidens that serve the O-dairi-sama and the O-hina-sama.

The rape blossoms (yellow flowers) were placed on both sides to represent bonbori - special lights that usually have painted shades. We also added origami balloons to represent these.

Then we added the rape blossom leaves and other feathery greenery just to even things out at the bottom of the arrangement.