This time of year I always start wanting flowers in my apartment. With Valentine’s day and spring around the corner (HOPEFUL about the spring… please come early this year!), I just want all the pretty blooms to brighten my day.
I have gotten flowers from Trader Joe’s for years and threw them in a vase and called it day. They looked pretty, but not GORGEOUS like all the bouquets I see on pinterest. So I set out on learning something new and I am soo glad I did. It was easy, cheap, and the pay off is beyond beautiful.
So to start, I read up on different different DIY options, and realized I am always drawn to the more whimsical boho bouquets, with lots of greenery and the look of “oh these flowers? I just went into my amazing garden in the backyard and threw them together!“
What I realized from reading up was that I needed to focus on getting at least two types of greenery, and start my bouquet with that. I know Trader Joe’s has a large section of greens to choose from so I was really excited to see what to pair together. I ended up choosing two greens (each $2.99), one waxflower that had tiny flowers but more greenery ($3.99), and one pack of spray roses ($4.99). In the end I actually think I would choose a different flower than the roses, or even just ditch them all together. Either way, the total for the flowers was less than $15 and I made a killer bouquet.
Okay to start, instead of using a piece of foam or something fancy, I placed all my greens in the vase first to act as a base. I really love the look of Farmgirl Flowers, and I read that part of their technique is to make the greens tall on one side and kind of drape down on the other side. It creates an S shape and a more fluid arrangement, instead of just having all the stems the same length.
I began with the eucalyptus silver dollars since they seemed like the most “true green” that I got (although I noticed after that most of the greens I chose had a cooler tone to them) and made the left side tall and the right side drapey. I also made sure to cross the stems to start to create a nice base to put the other flowers into.
Then I added the next green, which had small berry-like bunches on them, again focusing on making the left side taller.
Next I added the waxflowers. This was the first stem I actually had to cut, the others I just put in based on how the stems bent. I loved how these added a whole new texture to the bouquet with their feathery greens, but also a pop of color with their light purple flowers.
THIS IS WHERE I COULD HAVE STOPPED. I think the bouquet looked soo pretty just like this.
BUT I wanted it to be more of a flower arrangement and less just greens, so I added spray roses. One thing I did before putting the roses into the vase was I took the flower in my and and gently pressed on petals to make the rose appear fuller and more open. I love roses when their petals are spread out like this.
So I added the spray roses, making sure to cut the stems to different lengths so it wasn’t just a flat top of roses. Then I took a watering can and carefully added water to the vase. I could have done this first in retrospect but you do you.
In the end, I am obsessed with this arrangement. It is amazing how much of a difference doing a lot of greenery makes to the bouquet. AND it was so inexpensive!
Side note: once the roses start dying I am definitely taking them out and drying the rest of the greenery. I LOVE doing this! And then it makes me feel like I don’t want to buy new flowers every week..
Great content! Super high-quality! Keep it up! :)