Easter Flower Arrangments

It's getting closer to spring (thank goodness!) and that means Easter is right around the corner.  I normally don't decorate for Easter, but since it is Roman's first Easter I thought I would this year.  I love fresh flowers, but with a cat in the house they usually don't last long.  Even if I can keep the cat away from them they only last a week, at the most, and they can be very expensive. 

So the other night I let John put Roman to bed and I snuck off to visit my third love, the dollar store!  Easter had thrown up all over that place and it was glorious!  I had so many ideas running through my head that I filled and emptied my basket a few times trying to decide what I wanted to make.  They had their spring artificial flowers out and they actually didn't look horribly fake (sometimes it's hit and miss).  So I picked up 15 stems of 5 different types of flowers.  I thought I was going to have to use the regular, not so pretty, plastic flower pots but then I spotted the tin planters. So I picked up two with two different pictures on them.  I completely forgot to look for floral foam so I picked that up at Michael's later on.  Total cost for 2 arrangements.......$30!

 

Supplies

2 flower pots

2 pieces of floral foam roughly the same size as your pots

Artificial flowers - My pots were 12x6" and I used 15 stems of flowers with a few pieces left over.

 

First you need to trim your foam to fit into your pot.  I pressed the bottom of my pot into the floral foam to make a template to cut.  The best tool I've found for cutting floral foam is a bread knife.  I highly recommend cutting this foam on some newspaper so you have less mess to clean up.  Once the foam is cut set it into your pot.

Using wire snips I cut the individual stems off the main stem of the flower.  This allows you to place the flowers exactly where you want them, and spread them out, rather than having each type of flower in one large cluster.  If you don't have wire snips, I've also used an old pair of dog nail clippers.  Probably not something Martha Stewart would tell you to do, but hey, it works!

Now the fun part, arranging the flowers!  One at a time, poke the stem into the floral foam.  I plan on sitting my arrangements against a wall, so I put the tallest flowers at the back of the pot.  If the stems are longer than you like you can trim the bottoms.  If you want the stems to be a little taller, don't push them as far into the floral foam.

Continue adding floweres until the pot is completely full and it has a shape you are happy with.  The great thing about the floral foam is that it allows you to experiment and change your design as you go.  If you don't like the way something looks you can move it or replace it with another flower.  I also like to stick some flowers into the foam on an angle.  This way you can camouflage the stems and any open spots there may be.  It also makes it look a little more realistic because the flowers aren't all perfectly vertical.

Once I had my flowers arranged I added some sparkly eggs and berries just to give the arrangements a little punch.  Plus who doesn't love sparkles!?  Once Easter is over you can remove the eggs if you wish and you have beautiful arrangements that will take you right through the spring season.  I don't normally make my arrangements identicle, but if you like that look you can make them match.

I love using dollar store flowers because they are so inexpensive.  Flowers from Michael's can cost as much as $12 for one flower, and a pre-made arrangement of this size could cost as much as $50!  To me, that is way too much for a seasonal flower arrangement.  Now I know that sometimes the dollar store flowers look extremely fake, and sometimes like plastic.  I suggest checking out different dollar store chains (Dollarama, Dollar Tree, etc.) as some have a better selection of artificial flowers than others.

These arrangements definitely make my house feel a little more like spring.  Maybe if I put them outside they'll help melt the 3 feet of snow in my yard....