Fall Flowers and Leaves

I decided to try my hand at flower arranging. Frankly, I don't know the first thing about the subject, but I thought it would be fun to buy a few bunches at Trader Joe's and try my hand at making something beautiful.

For about $20 I bought a bunch of pink tulips, yellow alstroemeria, mini pumpkin branches and a bunch called "Autumn Spice" that included some protea and berry branches. I think the hardest part was choosing what to get. The flowers sold at my local grocery stores don't really stock natural or wild looking blooms so I also gathered some dried leaves from my backyard.

 I had planned on using a particular silver vase but it was nowhere to be found (I later learned it had been given away!) so I had to make due with a giant silver ice bucket. I really hadn't planned on making such a massive bouquet and I think the arrangement suffered a little because it should probably be taller. I don't think I was confident enough (and probably didn't have enough flowers) to really do this container justice, but I do love what I came up with.

I started off by using some electric tape to tape off a few lines across the top of the container to form some triangles. These really helped to keep the heavy mini pumpkin branches from toppling over. Next I added in the large proteas and then started working in the alstroemerias, tulips and finally the berry bunches and dried leaves. 

These mini pumpkins are actually from the eggplant family

The  bouquet lasted me a whole week and when I got back home on Sunday night, I picked out the wilted flowers and was able to make another much smaller bouquet with the remaining berry branches and alstroemeria (which seem to last forever).

Loving the fall