Flower Progress of Photographic Failures

Just checked back with my goals for Floraganza (go back to February), and progress towards them has been mixed.
I forced bulbs (#13, check), I've sent some flowers (#16, check), I've received flowers (#17, check), I had flowers in the kitchen constantly until June.  I have cool dried flowers in a graduated cylinder in my office all the time (#1, check, to some extent).  I've worn flowery things.  I read The Language of Flowers.  I did ethnobotanical story telling.  I'm drinking from a flowering mug as I write.
I have not, however, learned how to take a good photograph of flowers in my kitchen with my camera (#10, fail so far).

 Here's three of the many bouquets I've photographed both with and without flash.  Flash- overexposed with weird colors.  No flash- too muted and with too "soft" of focus.  Suggestions for remedies or ways to improve my technique?