HOW TO FILL A LARGE VESSEL WITH FLOWERS WITHOUT BREAKING THE BUDGET
Have I ever mentioned that I am a tightwad? Â I am. Â And I am proud of it. Â I consider it a personal challenge each month to get the most out of my money. Â This spills over into my home decorating as well as at the grocery store, and this means that I have to be creative!
Recently I found this lovely crock in a Facebook buy/sell/trade group for a steal!  My plan was to fill it with flowers and use it to prop my front door open on sunny days. I was surprised to find that the cost to fill this with faux flowers would be over $60.
Um, no. Y’all know I am a lot more thrifty than that!
First I found a 50% off sale at Michaels. Â In my opinion, Michaels has the best selection of affordable faux flowers. It’s the only place that I buy them, and people often mistake them for the real thing.
These dogwood branches are lovely! Â When I lived in Washington the dogwood blossoms were my favorite. Â They don’t grow here in Colorado, so I am stuck with fake. Â These branches look great, but I needed to buy 6 sets of them to fill my crock. Â Even with my coupon that price would have come to $30.
So, being the tightwad that I am, I bought two sets and left the store. My final cost was $10, but my crock was left less than full:
Kind of disappointing, don’t you think?
Let’s fill a vessel with flowers:
Gather your supplies: Brown craft paper, kitchen string, and some tape.
First of all let me say that this is one of those crafts that you will have to personalize for yourself. Â Your flowers will probably be a different size that mine, and your crock or bucket is sure to be larger or smaller than mine. Â All you have to do is play around with what you have to achieve something lovely!
I cut 24″ X 24″ squares out of my craft paper. I also cut my dogwood branches into smaller pieces. In the end I had 4 piles of small branches.
On my squares of craft paper I laid out one pile of my branches:
Then I folded the paper over my branches like so and taped the paper in place:
Using the string I tied a knot in the paper:
Next, I folded the paper over until I was happy with the result. Â This is the step that might challenge you. Â These packets of flowers are by no means perfect. Â Play with the paper and the flowers until you like the result:
You can now start stuffing these into your crock or bucket and creating a look you love. Â You will probably need to “fan out” your flowers to make them look nice.
If your flowers are too low in the crock or bucket, simply wad up some of your craft paper in the bottom to lift them up. If your flowers stick up to high you will need to cut part of your stems off. This is a very “casual” craft, so perfection will never be found in this one.
Remember that your one and only goal is to make your crock look like it’s full of flowers!
Faux flowers can be expensive and the cost to fill a vessel with flowers can break the budget. If you use a bit of creativity you might find yourself with a lovely home decor item, as well as money left in your bank account.
If you ask me, that is success!
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What a great tip! I’m with you! I wouldn’t have paid for all the branches. And this is much cuter. 🙂
Happy day friend!
karianne
Thank you, Karianne! 🙂
This is such a great tip! I love how it’s so cost effective and sneaky to…hehe
Sneakiness is a part of cost effectiveness, right??? LOL!
Have a lovely day, Lindsay!
Randi 🙂
I love it when I can learn a new “cheat” to make things look prettier. Thanks for the tip. Your dogwood blossoms in your ironstone canister look very nice for spring.
Thank you, Carol! 🙂
I so agree that faux flowers, while looking more real than ever, cost a fortune! (Even with coupons!) I love the crock as well as your brown paper advice. Genius! Thanks for sharing at Vintage Charm! xo Kathleen | Our Hopeful Home
You are so smart, love it! 🙂
Thank you, Nancy!
This is a wonderful tip for those of us decorating on a budget! The outcome is gorgeous! Thank you for sharing it with us at The Creative Circle Link Party!
what a great idea I love finding tips like this thanks for sharing
come see us at http://shopannies.blogspot.com
Great tip and the flowers look great
Thank you, Amber!
Fabulous tip!! I have always struggled to get flowers to sit in big things without toppling over!!
Thank you so much for sharing your super helpful tip with us over at Waste Not Wednesday!
I love this crock and your solution for filling it. Thanks for sharing it with us at the Waste Not Wednesday link party.
This is a really great tip. Faux flowers at Michael’s are so expensive. I applaud your work around It turned out really really well.
I love this! You are a genius! I would have never thought to incorporate the paper to give it a fuller appearance. This looks so cute! We just started the Whisk It Wednesday link party and I thought you might be interested in sharing there too! Thanks, Carrie
Randi, This is such a great idea and I loved it so much that I’ve chosen it as one of our features this evening at Share Your Style. Congratulations! I hope to see you this evening at our party.
Love this idea for making it look so full. This is a great budget friendly tip!