As most of you know, every month we like to enjoy one inexpensive- and sometimes free- bouquet to keep things feeling fresh around here (the idea actually stemmed from a super sweet Christmas present from the hubs a while back). But this month we got lucky. Nope, not with a free backyard bouquet, but with the photo shoot that we mentioned this morning… which involved a cooler full of flowers provided by the prop stylist, many of which weren’t even touched when the cameras were being packed away.
And what did that ever-amazing prop stylist do? She offered all the floral outcasts to us as she left. Did I mention said prop stylist happens to be my best friend who actually worked with us on our last photo shoot with Do It Yourself magazine as well? Anyway, we tried to send the bouquets home with her and she said she would just throw them away if we didn’t keep them because she had a long hot drive home and they’d be a bit worse for wear. Convincing argument. So we kept them. And our house has never felt more fresh and spring-like. Here’s what we ended up with.
We inherited a few errant cream colored carnations…
… that we stuck in three cheap-o Ikea vases on the windowsill with a bit of greenery to beef them up.
And you may have noticed that bottle with three roses in the first shot of the kitchen. Well, we were also left with these beauties, so a glass milk bottle that we had laying around became quite a charming (and kitchen appropriate) vase.
Aren’t the scarlet tips so pretty with the creamy yellow coloring on the rest of each bud? We’re not usually rose people, but we’ve both stopped to admire these guys for the last week on a daily basis.
The half bathroom also inherited a nice little cluster of cream carnations. And this time the vase was actually one of our new drinking glasses from World Market.
We love how the green glass and the green stems work so well to offset the pure white and cream blooms. And we’re confident that these guys will last clear through May and well into June. Of all the flowers that we’ve brought home over the past year+ of this whole monthly floral arrangement adventure, carnations never fail to last the longest and charm us to no end the whole time.
But now for the piece de resistance. Check out these luscious tulips with gorgeous varied coloring in my new green vase from Crate & Barrel (it was actually a sweet birthday gift from my sister-in-law, does she know me and my love of green glass or what?). These guys are definitely our favorite bouquet of the month- the entire house feels more vibrant and alive with them happily sitting on the dining room table.
So yeah, we’re feeling pretty spoiled by all the bouquets. Heck we almost feel guilty for having such an abundance. Have you guys ever found yourself with a plethora of petals throughout your home? Maybe from an overly enthusiastic backyard rose bush, a secret admirer, or a flower sale at Trader Joe’s? Do tell. And while we’re on the subject of a bounty of bouquets, what do you prefer when it comes to bringing the outdoors in? Do you like all-the-same-flower arrangements? Clear glass vases only? Low packed-tight bouquets? Wild meadow-like bunches? Brightly colored blossoms? Spill the bloom beans.
Wanna see our first grocery store bouquet from last January? Itching to check out February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September too? How about this year’s January, February, March, and April bouquets? Just follow the links for some pretty sweet cheap-o (and even free) bouquets.
LOVE the carnations in the bathroom! The cream color looks great with the green!
The Kroger by our house is constantly (daily) putting their cut flowers on clearance, bouquets are seriously like $2 for 20 roses. I love peeking by there once in a while and sprucing the place up, but yeah I def. feel guilty at times, but only just for a moment ;) The most exciting part is, our first married Valentine’s I found the same rare blue dendrobium orchids that we used in our wedding there for $1!!!!! they looked perfect to me, boy was I excited. :-D I was all over them like ants on a popsicle! We also had white hydrangeas in our wedding and I was lucky enough to find them on sale for about $3 for our anniversary dinner and then Easter I was able to get 2 bouquets of tulips for $2 each, and they lasted forever! Everyone check their local Kroger!
I’m actually a wedding planner and I absolutely LOVE it when I get to take a bunch of the left over floral home from my clients’ wedding receptions. Most of the time I am lucky enough to take them home in their vases, so I have quite a collection of glass. The saddest part is that if they aren’t claimed by the end of the night, they just get tossed. I can’t handle that thought, so I pack my car with whatever I can fit!
I love the look of flowers clustered into a silver mint julep cup so just the blooms show over the rim. I put these in the bathrooms whenever we’re entertaining.
Carnations are my favorite! I know alot of people pass them by because they are “cheap” but I love how romantic and ruffly they are. I especially love them in your bathroom!
those roses are so gorgeous!
our roses are blooming like crazy in the garden…cut a few yesterday and popped them in a vinegar bottle–nice, free pick-me-up on this rainy Ohio day!
The flowers look lovely! I have been adding vases of fresh flowers around our home lately (usually just flowers I find in the yard!) It’s amazing that something to easy and cheap can make your home feel so much more fresh and inviting! One question…do you change the water daily or is that not necessary? Are there any tricks to making fresh flowers last longer? Thanks!!
Hey Leah,
We do try to regularly change the water when we remember (about once every few days or so), and another tip is to cut the stems on an angle before putting them in vases so they can suck up more water. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
I love, L-O-V-E, the blooms on your kitchen windowsill. Something about the simple white vases sitting on the white sill… love it.
Thanks for the photo tips! It’s so interesting to see all of the secret tweaks that go into the photos. I can’t wait to see the magazine article.
We actually have an abundance right now! We were lucky enough to have Mother’s Day at our house as our first hosted event and we were brought two full bouquets of garden roses to spruce of our living room and dining nook – wonderfully smelling house-warming gifts!
I love carnations too – they have such a soft texture and come in so many colors – and usually on the cheap!
I really like your monthly bouquet! I think it’s such a sweet touch that I may have to suggest to my husband. The gorgeous tulips are my favorite. I love the warmth but freshness flowers and plants bring to a home. Very inviting!
Love all the blooms, but tulips are my favorite. I have them in two places in my house right now. Really loving those roses in the kitchen, too.
http://40daysof.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/frisbee-dog/
I love buying 1 bunch of flowers (usually alstromerias) and splitting them up into a few small vases for our bookshelves, bathroom vanities, bedside tables, etc. Target has adorable small glass vases for $0.99 each that work perfectly.
My local grocery store was having a 2 for 1 deal, so I bought a 2 lovely bouquets. Little did I know that my husband would suprise me with flowers at work the next day…it wasn’t my birthday or our anniversary, so I was totally shocked! But, it was a Friday and I didn’t want to leave them at work all weekend. So, our house was filled with 3 bouquets. It was so nice to have fresh flowers at every turn! And I’ve been able to pick out the carnations that are still alive, so we still have a pretty nice bouquet after three weeks.
I love that color combo for roses! (yellowy with pink-ish edges) No wonder you stop by to admire them daily! I would too.
My last pot was about this very topic! (http://shiftinglife.com/2010/05/bonus/) I made a cake for a friend that I decorated with fresh flowers. I had a bunch of flowers left over, so there are two cheerful vases in my house now.
The roses are beautiful. Love the color!
I don’t know if someone said this yet or not…but my father-in-law gave me a great tulip tip. Put pennies in the bottom of the vase, it helps the tulips stay standing up straighter!
Hey Jess,
Great tip! Thanks so much for sharing.
xo,
s
I love the flowers around the house!
One question though, I am in love with the apple picture in the kitchen! Where can I buy it?
Hey Michelle,
It’s actually from a giant poster we got from allposters.com (we cut it up and framed parts of it around the kitchen- one part above the stove and one part next to the sink). But I don’t know if they sell it anymore. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
My favourite flowers are peonies and sweet peas. Having just moved into a new home I am determined to grow both in my new backyard. I love these flowers because they make me think of my grandma’s backyard.
As for display I love small bud vases spaced throughout the house. I always divide my bouquets up and spread the love!
Gorgeous! Somehow I’m still unable to keep mine from dying after a few days (though I just got some daisies to last a full week!) despite your oh-so-helpful tips from last month. It could be that I’m buying less than fresh budget blooms (always a possibility in an urban environment :))…but I’ll keep trying! Yours look truly fab!
These are great! I love maximizing simple blooms too, so I don’t feel quite so guilty about buying cut flowers. Design*Sponge’s Sarah Ryhanen has a fabulous ‘how to’ video on flower arranging. If you’re a visual gal, like me, I didn’t to actually watch someone else do it to figure it out:
http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/05/weeders-digest-floral-arrangment-how-to-video.html
A cut flower tip that I read a while back – a 1/4 teaspoon of Chlorox added to the water will keep it nice and clear!
Another great tip. Thanks Jen!
xo,
s
My flowers are still going strong from when I snatched them
up from the side of the road a few weeks ago!
http://bontempsbeignet.blogspot.com/2010/04/highway-robbery.html
Total cost of flowers: zip zilch zero nada
Gorgeous flowers – I absolutely love those roses!
I can think of a few times I had an abundance of flowers. On my 22nd birthday my boyfriend sent me 18 roses to my office… the following birthday, he sent 2 dozen! The 2 dozen was quite a lot to take home on the commuter train (they were wider than me), but so gorgeous!
My dear husband hits up Produce Junction (there are a few locations in the Philly suburbs) for flowers as a treat, usually spending only $5 for a bunch + greens – this week white dahlias! His trick is to also get a bunch of various greenery to provide filler for dividing the one bunch into a few vases for various places around our house.
Also, a new trick I learned for tulips is to put a penny in the bottom of the vase. The copper helps the tulips to not droop as quickly!
SO PRETTY!! I received some birthday blooms end of April and they are still going strong (and make me very happy). I copied YHL and created a short vase of blooms in my bathroom – which is CA-UTE.
Love your arrangements! I just started working part time for a floral shop, and we do weddings. Now, I rescue whatever flowers I want after the weddings because otherwise they would be trashed. I love my new *free* source of flowers :)
My husband and I own a floral design business and we only do custom orders for big events- like weddings. So because we don’t have storefront, our shop is at home and we always have extra blooms! I love that nearly every weekend we have buckets of flowers all over the shop that I can pluck whatever I like. Though I am sad to admit that some weeks, after arranging dozens of bouquets and centerpieces, I am a little flowered-out and I don’t even use them before they go bad in the bucket. Fresh flowers, even if just a handful of carnations in a vase, are a great pick-me-up!
What a lovely idea…I plan to go home and dig out old vases and milk jugs and wine bottles to fill with fresh blooms!
XO
Lenore
I have the same IKEA vases as you!
I have never put flowers in mine… Need to get some in them! they Look ace.
I live in the Uk, so kinda wierd to think Ikea sell the same stuff in different countries.. lol
My pictures aren’t nearly as good as yours, but I recently posted about a flower arrangement I did when my book group met at our house. At Whole Foods I picked up three bouquets of bright yellow flowers (tulips, rununculus & calla lilies). I put them each in a separate white vase (clearance at Target), and lined them down the dining room table. They made such an impact! I’ll definitely be recycling this idea over and over.
Yours all look great too! I really like the bathroom arrangement. The green glass looks awesome with the white.
NOT RELATED to this post… but I am very excited. I was just to Home Goods and found the mirror in your nursery… also on clearance. Since I first saw it, I thought it would go great in my living room.
Also NOT related…I LOVE throw pillows, but cannot stomach the cost. Recently I have wanted the Welsey pillows from Crate and Barrel. Instead I bought the coordinating table place mats (4 of them) and have stitched them together to make 2 pillow (a bit smaller, but WAY cheaper.) When I ever get around to blogging about it, I will send a link. Basically, I got two for the price of one. (I just noticed they are on sale for $17.00.)
When my parents were in the hospital for extended periods (which happened quite a few times while I was in high school due to their medical conditions, unfortunately), people would send flowers. They were meant to cheer them up, but my mother is (extremely) allergic to flowers so they’d all get brought back to the house (when my mother was the patient she obviously didn’t want them in the hospital room, and when my father was she wanted them gone since she was at the hospital most of the time). A couple times we literally ran out of places to put them since they were mostly all huge bouquets. I love flowers, but unfortunately professional arrangements still remind me of those days.
I love your tulips and the green vase! We tend to have an abundance of flowers after we host a dinner party, since we have some on hand and guests bring them. One of the benefits of hosting, I guess!
We don’t have a backyard and don’t often buy flowers. I do love them but we never have them around…. perhaps that will have to change!
OH MAN, JUST WAY TOOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE.
LET ME KNOW IF YOU’RE IN A BEACHY MOOD THIS SUMMER…I’LL MAIL YOU STARFISH FOR YOUR KITCHEN WINDOW !!!!!!!!!!!!
Love the carnations … they’re one of my favorites :)
My husband built a raised bed in our alley way (we live in a condo) and my 8 week old daughter and I planted wildflower seeds. They are growing like crazy and I’m hoping we’ll be set for fresh blooms all summer! I hope to cut some regularly so we have sweet flowers indoors.
I love all your cute arrangements!
My preference is exactly like what you did – bunches of the same flower squeezed into a vase. And then repeating that with another type of flower similarly colored in a different vase. I love texture and it is a great way to show off the beauty of the flowers.
You know, carnations are growing on me. I think just by themselves. But I don’t love them mixed in with other flowers. I think it’s because I associate them with when my friend would “treat” me with them. He worked for a funeral home. Thanks for the leftover funeral flowers. :0)
We have an abundance of flowers from Mother’s Day when everyone in the family brought flowers for all the other moms. We have orchids, sunflowers and a couple of potted plants. I have yet to arrange them around the house, but will do so this evening. I love low, tightly packed bouquets of the same type of bloom in one or several closely related colors.
I love having flowers in my house! We’re moving in two days and all of my vases are already at the new house. But my fabulous white peonies are blooming so I used 3 of my clear juice glasses, they look like DOFs, and cut the flowers short so they’re sitting right at the lip. 1 flower each glass. I probably could have left them in the yard but they’re so pretty and smell so nice! Plus it’s the last time I’ll get to enjoy them, which is just depressing.
I love the single-flower, bunched together look, especially the carnations. I especially adore white carnations-simple and elegant. What is the deal with people who snub their noses at carnations? They have a lovely scent, they’re beautiful, and they’re long lasting. Glad to see the magazine folks haven’t turned their backs on the lovely carnation. Thanks for sharing your floral windfall!
omg I am lusting after one of those green vases!!!!
I planted three peony bushes last year and they are sporting huge blooms now. I have a bud vase in my kitchen with a bridal bouquet size stem of peonies in it. One of the blooms was seven inches wide. I bought them after their season at Lowe’s last year so I paid half price for them. I also purchased hydrangeas after their growning season and got them for half price at our local nursery. They are loaded with tiny green blooms now and I cannot wait for June!
I also do wedding floral design so I get the rewards of the “extra” stems. I like to use willow branches in a lot of pieces and I love bunching them in a vase. If they are still fresh they can be placed in a vase of water to root.
Right now, I’m enjoying a huge bouquet of lilacs from the bushes that line our back yard. The scent is heavenly!!
Beautiful flowers and lovely arrangements. Your house, as ever, looks a dream. For my flowers at home, I usually only use one type per vase, with maybe a little extra greenery mixed in to perk it up a bit. I like clear glass vases, but I’ve also got a super cute metal vase that I use on the dining table. Thanks for the great ideas!
Lucky you!
Had to chuckle at your milk jug – I thought to myself “wow, that looks like a Homestead Creamery jug”. That’s because it is! I forget sometimes that you guys are not far from me (I’m in Roanaoke). It really is the best milk ever.
I love having flowers in the house, but I often forget about doing it. I have peonies right now, my favourite. Single colour bouquets are usually what I do myself, as I am not much of a flower arranger. I like multicoloured if someone else has put it together though.