DIY Valentine's Flowers and DIY crafts

You may or may not know this, but Valentine’s day is kind of a big deal in the floral world. Flowers get pricy, florists lose sleep, and ladies all over the world are secretly grumpy that their man bought them flowers from Safeway. This year, do it right. This year, shop local. Or, this year, do it yourself! We created the following arrangement using flowers from Trader Joe’s and it cost us less than $36 for the blooms and the vase (plus, we had enough leftover to make 2 other arrangements!!)!

So, if you’re feeling ambitious this year, here’s how to create your own arrangement this Valentine’s day!

Supplies:

• Fresh flowers (we’ll break down recommended blooms below)


• Sharp scissors


• A Vase

photos: Amy Frances Photography

1. Buy your flowers! Choose a color palette and stick with it. It’s difficult to find foliage at grocery stores so feel free to trim from a tree if necessary (or forgo greens altogether). For our arrangement, we chose shades of pink and purple with a bit of white to keep everything grounded. We like to buy three types of blooms: focal flowers (tulips, peonies, ranunculus, roses), flowers with unique shape (freesia, stock, calla lilies), and fillers (chamomile, alstroemeria, wax flower, limonium). Choose at least 1 focal flower, two types of flowers with unique shape, and 1 filler.


2. Start by creating a base for your flowers with your filler (or foliage if you have it). Cut stems at an angle and cross stems in the vase to create a bike-spoke pattern. This will hold your other blooms in place.


3. Next, add your filler flowers and flowers with unique shape. Do this following the pattern you created with your foliage. Finally, add your focal flowers. Cut stems at varying lengths to give your arrangement shape and avoid anything too symmetrical (ex: tall flowers in the middle to small flowers on the edge).


4. When you feel you’re finished, turn your arrangement around and look for any blank spots. Fill them in with blooms to make sure you have a full, lush arrangement. A few pro tips for your foray into floral arranging; always cut the stem longer than you think you need because you can always cut again if it’s too long but you can’t make it longer if you overcut, use the edge of the table to measure stem length when cutting, and place blooms with delicate stems into your arrangement first and finish with hearty stems because they won’t break when your arrangement is tight.

P.S.

Don’t want to do it yourself? We’ve got you covered. Email hello@hootandholler.co for custom Valentine’s arrangements or buy one of our chocolate + flower packages from Chocolade Van Brugge this year at http://ift.tt/16uwYQj!

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