It’s always wonderful to receive fresh flowers on special occasions, or to surprise someone with a gorgeous and fragrant bouquet. However, as much as I love fresh flowers, I prefer to use faux floral stems for my some of my arrangements, because they last longer, and are generally more versatile and less expensive than fresh stems! Nowadays, you can find some high-quality faux flowers that are so realistic that you have to touch them before you can tell the difference! In this post, I want to share a few tips on creating a beautiful arrangement by using a few basic floral stems that you can embellish with additional flowers in the colors that you love.
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This arrangement of hydrangeas, dahlias, and wisteria stems, in a blue and white floral ginger jar, brightens up my kitchen island. Our kitchen is not naturally bright, so we needed something that would work as an attractive focal point, even on gloomy days! The same arrangement works equally well in other areas of our open-plan kitchen! Generally, I try to create an arrangement that will work in more than one room, or space. I also try to coordinate the colors of floral stems with other decor, whether it's seasonal decor, or part of the overall color scheme of a larger space. The gold grasshopper is a little chinoiserie touch to our kitchen island 'vignette', a recent find in a local store. It is also available here.
For the above arrangement, I used 3 hydrangea stems, 3 wisteria stems, 3 white floral stems and 3 dahlia stems. My hydrangea stems are from Target, however, since these are not available online at the moment, the link I provided above is to a similar hydrangea stem at Michael's. The dahlia stems were part of a floral bouquet from HomeGoods. A similar one is available at Michael’s.
In my family room, I like to use the art around our TV as a starting point for the colors in my floral arrangements. Most of the stems in this beautiful arrangement came in a bouquet of individual stems from HomeGoods. I think I paid $24.99 for the whole bouquet and was able to use a few of the stems in a couple of other arrangements. In addition to the bouquet stems, there are two hydrangea stems and a few peachy white roses. The pretty white pierced ginger jar is one of my favorite vases for faux arrangements because it works everywhere, and with everything! Please note that the ginger jar stand in the Amazon image is not included in the price.
In the photo above, you can see how the floral arrangement coordinates with the colors of the art around the TV. If you'd like more information about the art, click here to see my recent post about creating your own art.
Here is the same floral arrangement in a different spot in the hallway that is adjacent to our family room. The colors are in harmony with the large canvas art and the decor below the console table.
I use a similar color scheme for the floral arrangement on the mantel above my fireplace. Again, I have pulled out a few of the stems from the bouquet I bought in HomeGoods, and supplemented these with a couple of floral and fern stems from Target. This farmhouse style vase is small enough to fit my mantel but large enough not to disappear!
Here are a few simple tips for putting together the above arrangements:
Depending on the type of vase you have, use a few large flowers with longer stems. The hydrangea stems that I used in many of my arrangements are 24" tall and the blossoms on each stem are about 8” wide x 5" tall. Here is a similar one from Michaels that is a little taller but would still look great.
My blue and white ginger jar and white ginger jar are 13” and 12" tall respectively (without the lids), so I didn't even have to bend the hydrangea stems to make them fit. Taller stems would either need to be bent to fit, or cut to fit with wire cutters. I usually bend, rather than cut my stems because I want to have the option of using the stems in a variety of vases with differing heights.
If you want to create an arrangement similar to those in the above photos, use a vase/container that is not too narrow or too wide at the top. The top opening on my vases are 5"- 6".
My floral arrangements are generally about 24" tall and 18"-24" wide.
If you use fewer, but larger stems, you can create a 'tape grid' on the opening of your vase/container using floral adhesive tape. I used this method for the vase on my mantel. This 'grid' helps to keep the stems in a specific spot in your vase. However, please bear in mind that with this method, it's not always as easy to reposition stems that have been bent/folded. Here's a useful video by Pat Catan's Craft Centers on how to create a tape grid.