The Perfect Book Club Bouquet

Book clubs, summer reading by the pool, or just relaxing in my favorite spot, I always feel like flowers add to the mood. I whipped up this summery bouquet with a $2 thrift store vase and a bouquet from the supermarket. Since summer is on its way, you might want to make yourself one too! The seasonal colors would brighten up any book club or party! So here are a few tricks to getting the perfect book club bouquet:

1.     Pick your vase first. If you don’t have one, you could go to a thrift store and find one that speaks to you—look for summer colors. I searched specifically for blue or yellow. It’s easier for me to find matching flowers to a vase than it is the other way around.

2.     Clean your vase and fill it 2/3 the way with water.

3.     Scoot your vase to the edge of the counter before you start adding flowers. That way you can hold the flower up beside it, the stem dropping below counter height, and know how short to cut your stems by where the flower would fall in the vase.

4.     Open the bouquet and make piles of flowers that are short/small, medium sized, and tall/large. A last pile can be made with any greenery or filler plants like baby’s breath.

5.     With each stem, pull off the leaves, leaving only one or two at the top near the flower. (They just get soggy in the water and make the arrangement messy when I leave them on.)

6.     Start on the outside of the bouquet, working inward, arranging the smallest flowers in a circle around the rim of the vase.

7.     Begin going from smallest blooms to largest, working your way in a circle toward the middle, the heights gradually getting taller as you go, with the tallest/largest flowers in the center. Gently tuck each stem into the arrangement, using the other stems as leverage to hold your flower where you want it.

8.     Fill in any gaps with the filler plants you’d set to the side.

9.     Then take a look at your arrangement. Any brownish leaves or damaged petals? Turn the flower around so that the not-so-attractive sides are facing the inside of the bouquet. You want your prettiest side facing outward.

10. There you go! Now you’re ready for that summer reading!