Frugal Friday - Fabulous Floral Arrangements

Happy Frugal Friday, Islanders!

Confession: whenever I say, "island" I can envision myself with a smoothie on the beach playing tag with beads of sweat on my brow... the salty taste of the sea in the back of my throat... a good book screaming for my attention beside my beach chair... Shooooot, I might start using that word "island" more often. Anyways, I'm back from my much-needed momentary vacation... Maybe... well, for now.

Let's get to today's frugal tip, shall we?

FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS... ON THE CHEAP!

I was asked to create baby shower floral arrangements for a client/friend on a next-to-nothing budget this past Saturday.  The only requirement was to keep in mind these were for 6 small tables so I knew vases could not be large... Off I went on a hunt for narrow vases only to realize they were in the $5-$10/each price range.  WHAT?! I mean, my entire budget would be BLOWN on 3 or 4 vases alone... NOT AN OPTION! I considered purchasing the vases and just going crazy crafty using things OTHER than flowers but the labor-intensive option was not worth it in this case... SO, I looked around at what I had and I made it work!  Here's what I came up with:

From this:

Just a can of tomatoes with the label removed.

To this:

Covered with purple card stock.

With flowers:

How'd I do it? Here goes...

Supplies

- Containers (I used a can and other random jars from around my house and pantry).

- Coordinating card stock and scrap booking paper

- Embellishments (ribbon and buttons)

- Hot glue gun

- Hot glue

- Scissors

Steps 

1. Measure the circumference of your bottle.  You can use a ruler OR, do like I did, and just wrap the paper around the bottle making creases so you know where to cut.  Here's a pic of my fancy "technique" ;) 
Lazy crafter, I know but how about I'm all Idon'tcare.com about it?!



I just cut above the creases...

 2. Glue the paper to the container.

3. Add embellishments.

For the can, I used 2 sizes of circle punches. I glued the larger paper punch to the container. With the smaller punched paper,  I got fancy!  I balled it up, pinched the center to make it look ruffled, then glued right on top of the flat circle.  I added a button and BOOM SHAKA-LAKA!! Pretty paper flower embellishment is born.

4. I added ribbon to unify the look of every arrangement.

5. Add flowers. I purchased various floral mixes from my neighborhood Wegman's and combined them to ensure each container had a similar arrangement.  Note: I typically prefer a solid color if the vase has a lot going on but in this case the client wanted a little more variety.

6.  Do a victory dance, call yourself your hero and yell "TAKE THAT" to the stores who almost got your money! OR you could quietly enjoy the beauty you created from what you had... As for me, I'm still snappin' and 2-steppin' because I saved $40 - $60 and the mommy-to-be LOVED them!

Check out the other arrangements:

Mason Jar

Small Mason Jar

Spaghetti Sauce Jar

Salsa Jar

Small Mason Jar

Seeing these images reminds me to save jars.  What an affordable and fabulous way to place small arrangements around your home or event space.  Other uses for jars include: Soap dispenser (they sell lid kits at your craft/hardware store), desktop office supply holders (ribbon would make my paper clip holder fab? DONE!), bathroom supplies (Q-Tip, cotton balls, bobby pins, etc.) organizers and so much more.  So, before you trash (or recycle) it, think of what else you could do with it! 



All together...



 How do you turn trash to treasure or re-purpose in the name of making something fabulous?