10 Creative Ways to use DESIGN MASTER Spray Paint w/ Gretchen Sell

Learn 10 Creative Ways to Use Design Master Paint with pro-level floral spray techniques offered by Gretchen Sell of Design Master. Discover how to conceal blemishes, customize colors, up-cycle old products, and create show-stopping designs. You can transform ordinary flowers into extraordinary art with these creative color spray tips.

👉 Listen now on the How We Bloom podcast or read the full article on Floral Hub.

How we Bloom podcast is an oasis of flower ideas. Host Sharon McGukin of Smithers-Oasis North America interviews floral guests who dare to do things differently. We listen, learn, explore new opportunities and that's how we bloom!

Transcript

Gretchen Sell: 0:06

This is a fun part because color gives you the opportunity to be very creative and inventive and imaginative

Sharon McGukin: 0:18

Gretchen Sell is the education and creative director of Design Master, a division of the Smithers Oasis Company, shifting her once nationally defined parameter to a global approach of sharing the possibilities of using color tools. Joins us today to share professional tips for combining floral paint, also known as color spray and flowers to make color magic. When Gretchen achieved a horticultural degree from Purdue, she probably didn't foresee her upcoming 27 plus years of mastering the art of paint. Today you'll see she's the master as Gretchen offers ideas for creating the right color you need when the wrong colored flower arrives in your shop for a client's wedding, how to customize color for special event requests, hide flower blemishes on must-have fresh product, upcycle, aging floral botanical products, or create holiday latest, greatest colors that walk out the door with your satisfied customers. Gretchen knows just what to do. Today she's sharing 10 creative things you can do with floral paint. Gretchen welcome. Hi Sharon. Thanks so much for having I guess my first question, Gretchen, is why is Design Master Paint better for flowers than what I can pick up at the local hardware store?

Gretchen Sell: 1:41

Well, first of all, Design Master was formulated specifically for fresh flowers and for use in the floral industry. We have a 60 plus year history of serving the floral industry and providing color solutions using our sprays. So having that background and being fine tuned, to fresh flowers, you can be assured when you're applying it as according to the directions, your flowers will be safe. There are probably some materials that you've been able to use some of the heavier sprays, but there's no way that you would be able to change the color of a ranunculus using any of the, any of the craft or hardware store paints.

Sharon McGukin: 2:26

Perfect. I mentioned to you that Gretchen has a List of 10 things we can do to use paint effectively. So let's start with number one: create the color you need.

Gretchen Sell: 2:37

Well one of the great things about our color sprays is they give you opportunity to solve color problems. And one of those is creating the color you need. There's so many times when you don't have that tonality, have that color on hand. And you might have sold a color palette specific for a presentation. Flowers sometimes don't come in exactly how you've ordered them, but we give you the opportunity to fill that hole and create what you need with our sprays. One of the methods of doing so is what I call color infusion, and that's just taking a white flower. It's a perfect canvas for any of our spray colors, whether it's color tool spray, which is more of a pigmented spray, or the just for flowers, which is the flower dye. It's what you think of naturally is just taking a white flower and spraying it a color to get that color. Another opportunity is working with color shifting, and that's blending color on color. You're using the spray color on top of a colored blossom to create the color you need within color shifting. You can do that like three different ways. One is monochromatic shifts, and that's taking a color that you have and needing to go darker or go lighter. it's kind of obvious in a way, if you need to go darker, you choose deeper color within that palette to push it to a deeper value. Or if you need to go lighter, take one that is in the same color family, but a pale of that. Say you have pink but you want to go more blush. It's good to use the blush spray on top of that to light and that tonality. You could use like yellows, like a honeycomb, which is a pretty golden yellow but it's a softer value using that on a bright yellow hushes, that intensity of the yellow. So those are a couple of options of using a monochromatic shift. One of the easiest ways to do things is what you would call an analogous shift, and we're using our terminology from the color wheel and the analogous colors are the neighboring colors. So. It's probably one of the easiest ways to shift color.'cause you know, everything's gonna work out fine because neighbors are happy with one another. if you have a yellow and you need to push it more towards peach, you'd use a pink to push it in that direction. it goes through the blues to the lavenders and all around the board of the color wheel. But just picking a neighboring hue and spraying it. One of the tips as you're working with that is if you have a deeper value color, you can't use a lighter value Just for Flowers'cause that's the dye. And it doesn't show so much of being the transparent color coming through on a darker color. Like if you're using a medium blue you'd want to use Purple Pansy to push it to blue violet versus using Lilac, which is a lighter value of our purple family. And then the other item, another way to doing this is the complimentary shifts, and that's working with colors that are across the color wheel from one another. And interestingly, we know when we're working with compliments, how they accentuate one another. They make each other brighter and more vibrant. But when you're painting and using the opposite colors, it actually tones down the color. They, mix to kind of brown down the hue. So it can be a really interesting direction if you wanna mute some colors and help create some of those bridging tones that are really powerful and give a little more sophistication to a palette. And you could also use that complimentary shift with the split compliments. That doesn't have to always be the direct opposite, but it's a great way to tone down colors

Sharon McGukin: 6:48

I love the way you've defined each of these, so I'm gonna ask you for one more definition. We say floral paint, you say color spray. Can you give us the definition and how floral paint and color spray are really the same product.

Gretchen Sell: 7:04

Color Spray is the way Design Master has described our color products for over 60 years. Trying to differentiate ourselves from what you would use to spray your red wagon or something like that. We wanted to differentiate ourself to be more of an artistic type of product than just an everyday home use type of a thing. So color sprays lent our way to giving you a little bit more creativity behind using the products and also because the versatility of our sprays offers more ways to use the product. There's some great techniques that can be used to give you some really unique finishes on hard surfaces. You can apply just a little bit of spray to give you a cover coloring just like a wash of color versus a heavier coat. But you can also add more coats to deepen and enrich the colors. So there's a lot of versatility about applications that aren't available on spray paints.

Sharon McGukin: 8:21

Basically, you can get paint from the hardware store and color spray from Design Master so the more professional in its Okay, moving to number two: how to conceal, blossom blemishes or hide imperfections. Just like the things that you just discussed were very important to wedding work. This is a really big one on wedding work because often you'll get that orchid or something that has a little bit of a blemish, but you need to use that expensive product. So tell us what you could do.

Gretchen Sell: 8:51

When you have a blemish on a blossom. You know, we always try to send out our product a hundred percent. And no matter how diligent we are about safe handling, there's always gonna be situations where something gets bruised and you might be down to the last one, last arrangement or last bouquet. And the blossom isn't as brilliant as you the others are, or you want it to be a little dusting of a little spritz of Design Master can definitely hide those imperfections. And it, it helps you to really get the most out of your stock. It reduces flower waste and even saves margins. So applying a little spray in those situations it's kind of like applying makeup. We often times have, particularly as women, will have a little blemish that we wanna disguise and you know, it can be an excellent concealer at times. Some of the tips to do so probably white blossom, show a blemish brighter it's much more visible on white than some of the other products. So Flat White of our colored tool spray is the optimum product for those. On those kind of flowers like the roses are really good. It's good to do that. Casa Blanca lilies, those are pricey and you don't want to just toss those. So you've really can save them by just doing a little bit of a touchup. And the orchids, all kinds of orchids from cymbidiums and phalaenopsis. And one of the methods of doing that like on the Roses, you'll just wanna do a little spritz and concentrate your spritz. When you're working with our products, you wanna be 15 inches away from the blossom for safe application. So rather than a steady flow of spray coming out, just doing little spritz will give you a little bit more control, like on a rose where there was blemishes along the pedal edges. On orchids or Casablanca lilies, both of those flowers have a translucency to them. And you can spray the backside of the blossom to enhance the color and then come around on the front end and just add a little spritz again on the areas that might look a little brown that works really quickly and easily, and this little technique also dries really fast, so you don't have to worry about how much time is involved. Another opportunity is with anthuriums. they look very strong and sturdy, but somehow they do get bruised. And again, another pricey flower that you don't wanna lose your money on. So there's two situations to work with. One is, spraying it trying to match its natural color and hiding that blossom. Again, you could use a white on the white anthurium, the pale pink. Our Blush works really nice on those. The reds, you can use our holiday reds, things like that. Or you could go a little more novelty and a little more fantastic in a way, and spraying them either with a metallic or just a color, not known in nature. or something. You could go both ways. And on anthuriums masking the pistil is a good technique to cover it. So when you're spraying it, you can remove a little protection from it and it'll still look natural.

Sharon McGukin: 12:34

seen people use water tubes? Upside down over the just keep the, the spray off of it?

Gretchen Sell: 12:41

When you're working with concealing blemishes, it's best to use our Colortool sprays. Those are pigmented and that's what's gonna help hide the blemish Just for Flowers is translucent and so you're still gonna see the surface detail underneath. And if that's a blemish that's there, you're still gonna see that. So for concealing blemishes, use Colortool spray.

Sharon McGukin: 13:04

For that. Number three: expand creative boundaries to design unabashedly in any color you want.

Gretchen Sell: 13:12

This is a fun part because color gives you the opportunity to be very creative and inventive and imaginative. And with flowers, being our tools, we can explore anything outside of things not seen in nature They might end up looking like they're natural, but it's not a color that the flower would come in naturally. Or the other situation of working with that is spraying the whole stem in the bloom so that the element is a complete color element and can oftentimes give you a very structural kind of appeal That could be kind of cool in design. And then there's combinations of blending that you can do with our sprays particularly on the anthuriums, like you can do a metallic base and then use Just for Flowers on top to give a kind of a fantasy purple or a coppery color that you wouldn't have by other means. But it's just a interesting avenue of using products that you have that you can't get full value out of to making it something you can upcharge for and save your margin.

Sharon McGukin: 14:22

Number four. Speaking of saving money, upcycle stagnant product display items for fresh appeal. Sprays work on many hard surfaces too, so tell us how to turn that trash into cash.

Gretchen Sell: 14:36

That's right. Well, I think anyone who has experienced any store display has a story of a customer thinking you got new product when all you did was move your location. And on that concept, I think there's products that have been in a shop sometimes we inherit them from previous owners. Sometimes it just doesn't move when we've been there for a while. But a splash of color and just changing the color, whether you're taking it straight up and just spraying, you know, spraying something that is a obnoxious color to something more trendy. It's amazing how fresh it can look for people. And you can move that and sell it, or use it for design work as well. The fresh color works really nicely on ceramics and baskets and, you know, not just the flowers, but the other items that we have.

Sharon McGukin: 15:29

That leads us to number five: customizing color for special request, And that applies to. both flowers and containers.

Gretchen Sell: 15:36

Yes, very much so. Well, we know bridal work is probably one of the most specialized, when we request special colors But also for like interior display, if you're doing a nice design for home, our a corporate location and you're trying to find the right piece for that and in the right color, that's where you can customize with our sprays. And we also have some really fun, unique techniques that work really well on hard surfaces like that too, from a water resist technique. And, you know, just simple blending. You can get an ombre look whether you're using a monochromatic ombre or just doing two colors together, just having a blending of colors can be interesting as well. So there's many things that you can do in customizing that. And also if you're working with permanent botanicals and silks the sprays also work nicely on those as well. So if you need to expand your palette. Like you have a box of pink roses, but you need something a little bit more. Give them a little bit more oomph. You can even stay in the monochromatic lane and just change those pinks into some of the other pinks and have a really nice palette that's just a little bit more interesting than not only mono botanical, but mono color.

Sharon McGukin: 17:04

Think one of the greatest uses of this suggestion is that you can take old product and sell it quickly because impulse shopping or impulse buys very often come from something that's really trendy. It's the the new hot color. We want it because it's new and goes with any redecorating we're doing Drive impulse buys by painting or upgrading the materials to the latest, greatest color People come in and that old product that sat on your shelf for a long time looks like a beautiful new on-trend vase. Number six: create fall. flower tones. Go beyond gold, orange, burgundy, and brown.

Gretchen Sell: 17:50

You know, actually you can take any palete and push it to autumn by toning down some of the colors, again with our products. Let me give you a few examples. Thicket a Just for Flowers spray, that is a gray tone, works wonderfully on red and purples to deepen those colors. you can take a red rose and go a little deeper. Purple mums go to a really pretty rich, deeper tone with a spritz of Thicket. You can, again, talk about color shifting using the complimentary colors, that tones down colors very easily and gives you that great bridging color into bouquets. This is one of my favorites, like a medium bronze mum with Coral Bright, which is Just for Flowers, equals a really beautiful, warm, muted orange. And then you can add an extra coat to deepen that color. So it gives you so many options when you're working with the Just for Flowers. The properties of the color value you have so much more control on. On Red blooms, you can take Peacock, which is a teal tonality and a Just for Flowers color that shifts the red to burgundy. And then if you use Delphinium blue on the red, it'll push it to maroon. Lavender disbud mums, the ball shape is my favorite, but using color tool Red Clay, or Honeycomb on that is a beautiful bridging color as well. And again, Thicket on that lavender disbud is really pretty. Consider metallic colors on grasses. That's kind of a fun accent into the fall things. And then also probably one of the most asked about is antique hydrangea. You can take your blues or your green hydrangeas and blend a lot of the different hues, our COLORTOOL sprays, and Just for Flowers, work with one another. So you can layer the colors and create any kind of antique hydrangea you want. Just a little tip: Start with the COLORTOOL spray, and then Just for Flowers on top for shifting. You can use only COLORTOOL spray, or you can use only Just for Flowers, but you can also mix them. And if you're mixing them it's best to start with the Color Tool and then the Just for Flowers on top. And then it's not a spray, but we have our Absorb It, which is a stem dye. A really pretty Brownie recipe is two parts. Holiday red to one part yellow, yellow and one part teal. So if you're looking for those Brownie carnations, that's a good combination.

Sharon McGukin: 20:38

Number seven: is winter holiday shimmer. Beyond the can color.

Gretchen Sell: 20:42

At holiday time, you know, we all like the pizazz of metallics. It just adds that sparkle for the holiday. But you might also consider the techniques we are touching base with on anthuriums and spray the premium metals first on the base and then overlaying with the Just for Flowers colors or you could do it on accessories, whether it's pine cones or lotus pods, just a whole different vibe. It's probably not as bright and dynamic as the straight metallic, but it still has this really wonderful shimmer and can be a really fun shift for a holiday accent.

Sharon McGukin: 21:22

I think that's probably the time we use color spray most for the holidays on faux botanicals or weddings on fresh flowers.

Gretchen Sell: 21:31

Probably. Yeah, the holiday times is a big season for florists, for sure.

Sharon McGukin: 21:37

Number eight: Salt Blast technique. Clear Finish matte, and baking soda. Tell us about that.

Gretchen Sell: 21:45

Yes, that's the recipe. Salt Blast technique, I fool around with and played with it. Not too long ago you were seeing a lot of glassware that had this unique whitish finish on it that was very textural and it just gave a, a wash kind of over any glassware, whether it was clear or colored type of a thing. I called it Salt Blast technique and using the baking soda, that's the salt part of it. But it can create this really neat aged glass effect. And, you can do this technique to add texture to other surfaces too, but it's very simple. Using our Clear Finish Matte I'm gonna talk about doing it on a vase, taking a vase, and spray that close and don't follow the directions on that one. You wanna spray close so it's wet. And then sprinkle on baking soda, and then turn your vase a little bit more and do the same routine. Spray down the clear finish mat and sprinkle baking soda, and do that to completely cover. The container or the surface and let it dry for a little bit and then come back with another coat of just the Clear Finish matte. And that gives it a nice seal to the process. But it can create this really awesome look, you've, I'm sure you've all seen things similar manufactured finishes in the stores. And you could do this with anything. And again, you can use it for upscaling some vases. A few years ago we had all these different green glass vases and use that technique and it gave a whole new look about'em and were received very well. So it's a great technique to upcycle as well. I've also done that technique on a plastic urn and then doing a metallic top coat, and it just gave us extra texture to it that just enriched it rather than plastic. It just gave it another texture to make it feel like it was a more expensive material to

Sharon McGukin: 24:00

That's a great way to upcycle older material to make it sell Giving it that new look. it also would be a great thing to do in a hands-on class. A lot of shops do hands-on classes for their customers. For the holidays, pulling out some old glassware that you need to move. Then having a hands-on in your shop teaching people how to do that with Design Master. That'd be a really cool'Girls Night Out,' wouldn't it?

Gretchen Sell: 24:26

It would be fun. And then they could do the flower design and the vase,'cause it doesn't take long to dry. One other little tip with the baking soda, I like to keep my baking soda in the freezer. It just seems like when I was sprinkling it out, it would have a little bit more clumps. Not heavy, but it would just coagulate. Give you a little more variation on the surface versus it all being very,

Sharon McGukin: 24:50

Oh, that's a great tip.

Gretchen Sell: 24:51

So just a little, there's other ways to play with it.

Sharon McGukin: 24:54

We need to invite Gretchen over, have lots of paints, and just play. It would be fun.

Gretchen Sell: 24:59

play. That's right. It's fun.

Sharon McGukin: 25:02

Number nine: Faux Watercolor Silk Ribbon.

Gretchen Sell: 25:05

Yeah. You know, those watercolor silk ribbons are just absolutely fabulous and beautiful, and you can mimic that look using your double satin, your standard double satin ribbon. And you can do it with any kind of colorations that you want to. It's really kind of pretty cool at this time of the year of working with the moody hues and getting this really rich, color that blends from one to the other down the whole stretch the ribbon and to do this you take the ribbon and bunch it up into your hand, protect your hand with some latex gloves and very closely spritz into the ribbon and you use your thumbs and work the paint around in it. And you pull the ribbon out and you'll see it'll look a little splotchy at the first time. But then coming back in and get regathering it and trying to expose some of the other areas that weren't sprayed, do another color and hit those areas. And again, use your thumbs to kind of blend the tonalities together a little bit, doing two, three colorations. If you want, you can use the Color Tool alone. You can use the Just for Flowers alone, or you can use a combination of the two. It's just that process of gathering it into your hand and spritzing it and using your fingers to rub it through. And when you have all the colors that you want if you want a little more blending. Take a little bit of acetone. It could be from the hardware store or it could be nail polish remover and just go in on those edges that you want a little smoother and rub that in. And it blends the colors seamlessly. Acetone is the solvent in our spray, so it works very well to blend those colors together, and you don't have to worry. The aroma from the acetone does dissipate, and you can even wash the ribbons, but you can get some gorgeous looking ribbon that looks very much like the watercolor silk ribbons.

Sharon McGukin: 27:22

That sounds really cool. That would be pretty at Easter or Mother's Day. To those custom designed ribbons, you know, find out what their favorite colors are, and then blend that to go into an arrangement or a basket or something of that nature. That sounds like it would be fun to do.

Gretchen Sell: 27:41

Yeah, I mean, even if you're wanting to do it at home for some hair ribbons for your daughter or something like that, you can go as wild and funky as you want, or you can go as sophisticated and rich as you want, you know, so it's a fun thing to

Sharon McGukin: 27:55

seems like that would be a good seller if you did it in school colors. The school colors were the basis, but you did other complimentary colors along with it and made it for hair. ribbons and such.

Gretchen Sell: 28:07

That's a great idea. Yeah,

Sharon McGukin: 28:10

Well, that leads us to our ultimate Number 10: Painted Foliages can be of Strong Color Elements in Design. Tell us about that.

Gretchen Sell: 28:20

We have seen a lot of that being done spraying foliages, and it does add a such a wonderful, shimmery accent to designs and enriches it. And a lot of people do think when there's something metallic in involved, it does elevate the style of the design. But some fun things to work with that is that one thing I found is using a stem of Ming Fern in gold, one of our premium metals, whether it's 24 Karat Gold or Gold Medal One of those or Rose Gold and Champagne Gold. But the whole stem of a ming fern, it just makes a really gorgeous sculptural element. It just holding that one stem by itself is it just phenomenal, even fun. So that can be a springboard to taking your ideas and designing a really unique presentation. When you're working with the foliages if you're wanting to go with a light color, it's a really good idea to prime the base first with either, Super Silver is what we've been doing for many years. But Ace Berry, a friend of Design Master, has also suggested Flat White, and it just brightens the color that you're applying on top. You think about it, the foliage is dark and it just kind of when you're spraying a light coat of color on top of it, it will affect that look. So having that primer works really, really well. And then also the other type of fluffy foliages, not just the Ming, but like plumosa, do a quick spray of premium metals first, that metallic color has such really quick coverage in any area that's not gonna get covered by the final color, it just blends nicely, having a little bit of the Metallic can kind of peek through a little bit. It just is a nice blend so you get more oomph from your color when you have that metallic base.

Sharon McGukin: 30:27

One thing that you are always reminding us is that Design Master color spray is flower safe. You're enhancing the flower, but you're not hurting the flower.

Gretchen Sell: 30:38

Correct. And with that, there is an application method specifically for fresh flowers to be safe, and that is to spray 15 inches away from the blossom. Some of you know this many don't, but if you're spraying too close, the propellant in the spray doesn't have an opportunity to evaporate. And if it lands directly on the flower or if you're spraying too much, too close, it'll puddle. And that propellant actually freezes the surface will cause it to turn brown. So that's why 15 inches it's, our formula is one to give you that light, layering of color. And then two, the application technique of 15 inches. Those are the key things why our sprays are safe to use on fresh flowers.

Sharon McGukin: 31:28

we've loved your 10 suggestions. Obviously we'll do a blog and we will have these suggestions written out. If you have enjoyed the podcast, be sure and look for the blog as well on the Oasis website, oasisfloralproducts.com and try some of these things. It's fun to do with paint. I was thinking when you were talking about the anthurium the first time I ever saw someone spray paint one an aqua color, I was just like,"oh my gosh, that's quite different from the red And the thought of covering the material with bright colors or metallic colors, can add so much to your design and personalize your design. Because you're the person who's directing the color

Gretchen Sell: 32:13

Well, you know, you can work with color two ways, and I know today's marketplace is much more open to color and being outside the box of what Mother Nature has given us. But also if you don't wanna go that way, there's many opportunities for applying the color in a very natural way. And sometimes you can't even tell the difference. So there are opportunities to satisfy both marketplaces and desired taste. It's a pretty versatile product.

Sharon McGukin: 32:48

And the 10 different ways that you've shown us, let us change the color of the flower for function, for a rescue, for creativity, for just the enjoyment of a color and for selling on-trend materials. You have the same flower materials from season to season often, and how can you make them stand out and differentiate quickly? Color is one of the ways that helps most because color is the most eye-catching element. So when you do something unusual with color, it's sure to catch the attention of the client. I know one thing you've been working on that you're really excited about is the new website. Can you tell us something about the new website?

Gretchen Sell: 33:30

Oh, definitely. There's been a lot of hard work going into that. Yes, dmcolor.com is getting a new face and it should be coming up pretty soon. I can't give you an exact date, but a lot of these techniques and discussions about how to use color and work with color and learning more about the different types of color of the sprays we have is all covered on our new Design Master website, dm color.com.

Sharon McGukin: 33:57

you so much. We'll be checking that out and thanks for all your hard work in helping us to expand our use of color, Gretchen, we really appreciate it

Gretchen Sell: 34:05

My pleasure.

Sharon McGukin: 34:06

And thank you so much for being with us here today. It's just been a pleasure, as always.

Gretchen Sell: 34:10

been a pleasure, as always. Oh, it's always my pleasure talking with you, Sharon. Thanks so much. Appreciate what you do for our industry too,

Sharon McGukin: 34:18

A great industry to work with other professionals and learn more every day.

Gretchen Sell: 34:24

True that, thanks.

Sharon McGukin: 34:30

To our audience, Smithers-Oasis, North America and I want to thank you for joining us today. If you've enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and be sure to hit subscribe. You don't want to miss the inspired solutions our upcoming guests will share with you for your personal or business growth. If you have topics or guests you want to hear, please message me. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time, I'm Sharon McGukin reminding you that like the unfurling petals of a flower, we grow by changing form, soaking inspiration in like raindrops, absorbing energy from others like warmth from the sun. This growth opens us up to new ideas and that's How we Bloom.