How to Create Floral Arrangements for Every Room of the House for $20

I was inspired to write this post thinking back on the time when, having graduated recently from college, I was living alone for the first time in a tiny apartment in Boston. I was still trying to figure things out as a freelancer and was broke. Despite this, every other week I would spend about $5 at the local grocery store on flowers and once a week I bought a bar of dark chocolate when I picked up my groceries at Trader Joes. These were my two big self-indulgences at a time when my weekly grocery budget was a strict $20, and I had to keep track of every penny. This may seem like a small thing, but to me, it made a huge difference. 

On a recent shopping trip to Trader Joes, I decided to see just how far I could stretch $20 in their floral department, I had purchased loads of flowers from them to decorate the house for my daughter's first birthday and they rang in around $30-$35 dollars. I opted to embrace the filler this time around as it's only about $2.50 a bunch and to stick with a color palette to keep everything cohesive. I wanted the arrangement to feel springy so I chose green with accents in pink and white and yellow. Narrowing your selection down to just a few colors is a great way to make your arrangements feel intentional and to unite different elements. Since I was going to be working mostly with filler I also decided to focus on texture to keep things interesting. Here's what I purchased and how I created my arrangements. 

 Flowers pictured: White Tulips, Pink Carnations, Bells of Ireland, Yellow Estelle, White Larkspur

 1. I laid out the flowers on a counter and removed the plastic then trimmed the stems about an inch at a slight angle.

2. I selected an assortment of vases, I wanted to have some unity while creating a variety of arrangements so I decided to stick with glass vessels in a range of sizes and shapes.

3. I started with the greenery, evenly dispersing it among my vessels depending on their size, smaller containers may only get one sprig while the large ones get 3-4. I also trimmed the stems to an appropriate height when necessary.

4. Following the same method as above add in your flowers. Make sure to turn your arrangements and check them out from all angles then adjust as needed.

5. Enjoy!