Whether you grow them or buy them, flowers improve the appearance of any table and make a meal special. Often, what I need is a bit of inspiration and seeing a picture or seeing an arrangement someone else has done makes my internal light bulb turn on. Perhaps some of the pictures below of bouquets I’ve made will spark an idea for your new bouquet!
This is one of the best centerpieces I have ever made. I combined flowers from the garden (hydrangeas, mums) with store-bought orange tulips, rust and plum calla lilies, and hypericum berries. The result was magnificent!
Here’s a close-up of the arrangement. The colors are just right for autumn.
Grocery Store Flowers – a little of this, a little of that (they were 3 for $10 in little amounts). I stuck them in the moss purse and it was easy, easy, easy.
A week after I made the arrangement above, the lilies were history and the arrangement needed a little refreshing. I bought the smallest bouquet I could find at the grocery store, removed the items that were goners, and spruced it all up.
These orange roses were amazing. The purple hydrangea paired well with them, but my camera angle wasn’t great for this shot.
Dahlias come in all colors, all sizes. I rounded up the last of the season and plopped them into a fall vase.
Take one large hydrangea in a tall vase. Insert gladiolus at various spots through its branches. Instant arrangement!
Isn’t this lotus pod the coolest thing? Pair it with thistle flowers and some exotic hydrangea. Scatter a few stones at the bottom of the tiny square vase. Perfect for setting at an individual plate or a table for two.
Sometimes a single flower is so exquisite that it’s all you need, either in an elegant little bud vase, or perhaps floating in a bowl. This peony was so beautiful it almost made me want to grab a paintbrush and canvas and channel my inner Georgia O’Keeffe.
Any time you can match your flowers to your dishes and linens (or vice versa) you’re in bonus territory!
See the pink ruffled stuff? That’s cockscomb. It comes in yellow, red, hot pink, and orange. Feels like velbet, looks spectacular. And it lasts! Here, I paired it with lotus pods, thistle, and a bunch of fresh basil.
If the table isn’t going to be too crowded with platters and serving bowls, I really enjoy doing individual arrangements at each place setting, in addition to larger arrangements. My table is long (10 feet), so two medium-size arrangements work well. The smaller arrangements are in clear votive candle holders that I got for under $1.00 a piece and can reuse over and over.
See? Not too crowded! Even with the individual bouquets and the two larger arrangements. Note how the flowers are an eclectic mix, but they mirror the colors in the dishes.
The base in the center is awesome because it consists of three square glass components inside a metal and wood frame. It makes it easy to go big without a major hassle doing the arrangement.
Several small vases, each with a handful of flowers and herbs just plucked from the garden. Very effective.
This is an eclectic mix — a few knockout roses, an ormanetal cabbage, a sunflower, and whatever else we could find!
Gotta love Gerber daisies. They’re so perfect-looking, and they come in all the right colors. A few white, a lotta red, and a few tulips thrown in for good measure.
Here is a simple arrangement with red cockscomb and basil. Doesn’t it just scream “CHRISTMAS”?
Right out of the yard! Mint, a little Russian sage or something, zinnias, roses, and an iris bud.
Blue and white Scabiosa mix with thistle. It was a great color combination!
Several bright colors of glads mirror the colors in our plates and bowls. We kept it tall and thin. I can’t remember if we could actually converse around it, or had to shift it to one end of the table for conversations-sake, but it sure made a great first impression when the guests walked out onto the patio!
See more flower and bouquet ideas from Pretty Food.
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