Shower Flowers 101: Elegant and Simple DIY Arrangements

This past weekend I co hosted a shower for one of my oldest and dearest friends Sarah.  She's expecting a boy in January so it was time to eat cake and shower her with gifts.  It was my responsibility to handle the floral decor for the event and well, I am no Eddie Ross, but I must say they turned out lovely.  Each arrangement cost only $15 and they were also gifts for the mother-to-be, and grandmothers-to-be.  Below I share with you how I put them together. 

First I headed to Sam's Club to purchase 4 dozen roses for $40.  I stuck with one type of flower to keep the cost down and the arrangements simple.  I went with the orange since it seemed fitting for fall.  Costco is also a great place to buy flowers in bulk for cheap and FYI; you can place your order in advance with the florist and select the exact color roses you want.

Then I went to a grocery florist to buy the vases, large heavy rectangle vases for only $7 each.  When I got home I washed them and cut large leaves from the plants in my backyard to line the inside of the vases and hide the stems.  This gives the arrangements a polished and more professional look.

I then divided up the roses evenly and cut them to the desired height I wanted them to sit in the vases.  I also pulled off any wilted and unsightly petals and excess leaves around the stalk leaving only a few at the bud.

Then to get even more creative I headed back out to my yard and clipped a few branches from a bush that was producing orange berries.  I clipped the branches to the desired height and let the berries just kind of organically hang over the edge of the vase.  I also pulled some leaves from another rather large monkey grass bush and created random loops around a few buds that I secured with floral wire to add more fill to the vases. 

After I arranged each vase as I described above, I then worked the buds around until they sat as I had desired and filled the vases with water and a bit of flower food that came with the roses.  I've also been told you can add a little sugar to the water, but I've never tried this.    Here they are below all lined up and ready to go.  Almost.  I could have stopped here and they would have been just fine for the event, but I decided to take them a step further. 

Since I made the baby bedding for the mother-to-be I headed to my studio and grabbed a few scraps of fabric that I cut with pinking shears to give the edges a zigzag cut and prevent the fabric from fraying.  I wrapped each vase in a different fabric with coordinating ribbon and secured the fabric in the back with straight pins.  And last the most popular vase of all was the monogrammed one with the baby's last name initial.

I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial and found some inspiration for your next dinner party or event!