It’s May 1st. Which means we have officially crawled out of the depths of winter and find ourselves standing in the sun with the promise of summer just around the corner.
In England May Day involves the frivolities of dancing around a maypole, crowning a May Queen and leaving paper cones of flowers on people’s front door. An explosion of all things spring, celebrated while the lambs frolic in the fields and the flowers poke up through the soil with a cheery hello.
And if it’s May than the end of the school year is fast approaching, which means teacher gifts. These days, nine times out of ten I give gift cards but I do find it rather nice to tuck the card into the blossoms of an inexpensive little flower arrangement.
None of the arrangements here are going to win any awards at the Chelsea Flower Show, but I wanted to highlight how with a little creativity you can turn the most mundane assortment of grocery store flowers into something a little more fun and fresh than those leggy blooms wrapped in cellophane. Nothing costs more than twelve dollars, some much less.
I’m a big fan of using a basic tin can to house the flowers which I cover in wrapping paper. All of the papers you see in the photo above are from Paper Source . They have a fun and fabulous selection and I find that this paper works the best as it has a nice weight to it. That champagne gold glitter one is a favourite, just be warned that you will be wearing copious amounts of the glitter by the time you’re done and it also requires the purchase of a special extra sticky tape.
My flower go to tends to be the simplest of options…. a bunch of hydrangeas from Trader Joe’s. Clean and classic for a grand total of $6.49. Here they are combined with a graphic black and white paper which I love for its striking simplicity.
Below, I have combined some plain white daisies and spray roses, just to prove that even on a Monday morning when the grocery store flowers are sadly lacking, you can find something that will work. I put them in a tin painted black and tied with a ribbon.
Another way to go is your basic mason jar. Plain works really well, especially if tied with a bit of ribbon or even twine, but you can also give them a lick of paint. Just do it a few days ahead to give the paint plenty of time to fully cure.
Above, I combined sunflowers with white alstroemeria and a couple of pieces of filler which looks like Irish moss. I have no idea what it’s called. Even the wrapper simply said “filler”. The pink jar combines a very Lilly Pulitzer combination of bright green spider mums and pink roses with the daisies.
Another fun thing to do is take the much maligned carnation and pack them tightly together. En masse they form a lovely frilly bouquet. Here I have used three bunches ($12), two of a charming two toned pink and green flower combined with a darker pink…only because there were only two bunches left of the two toned flowers, otherwise I would have used all the same. In the past I have used a combination of sherbet colours which I loved.
This cute little bouquet below was a $3.99 bunch which Trader Joe’s generally seem to have these days and which comes in a wide variety of choices. I put it in a small quilted jam jar. Doesn’t get cheaper or easier than that.
If you want to add a little more interest to the basic hydrangea arrangement pop in half of dozen or so roses in a bright colour. Ranunculus also work really well for this in their array of candy colours.
And here I’ve taken the same tin from before but added pale pink tulips and roses to the white roses. There’s something about that black/white/pale pink combo that feels very chic and Parisian.
One thing all these flowers have in common is that they have been cut very short. It immediately makes them much more appealing than their long and leggy counterparts.
Also, I like to limit my flower varieties to no more than three and put them into groupings, not intermixed with each other. It has a little more impact that way.
Something else which helps inexpensive flowers look better is to do an arrangement in all the same colour or tone. This works especially well with white. The classic elegance of white makes everything look better.When cut short and combined even basic white roses, mums, alstroemeria and daisies will look chic.
