Valentine's Day is coming up shortly and I've got some ideas that hopefully will save you some money. Long stem roses, of course, are like a hundred bucks at Valentine’s Day. So, let’s think of some ways that we can save money and still have some nice things to give for Valentine’s day.
What I've done here is I've taken a heart shaped candy thing. I've taken my roses and my floral foam and I've created this heart shaped rose.
And how that is done, the best was to measure your floral foam is to literally press it in to the foam. You've got your shape, you cut around that shape real quick with a scissor or a sharp knife and that makes half your heart. And floral foam has a certain thickness to it. So, you just peel this all away and once you've got your heart shape you can cut it to the correct depth for these, which I've done here as well as here.
This is carnations. Little pink carnations, they last a long long time. I'm going to show you how easy it is to just poke them in there. We'll start with these. So, cut it close to the base of the flower and then just stick it in. My floral foam has already been soaked with the preservative, I'm going to show you how that’s done in just a minute.
Again, you just keep building up your heart shape. The key to this is to get the heart shape here. So, as you work around it you might find that the smaller little buds work well in some spots than others. Again, it’s just as you go figuring out where it needs a little beefing up. Heart shapes are everywhere, this a little tin, this is a jewelry box. This actually was too small, there is such a thing as too small. You can do this with any heart shape, again it’s just a matter of finding the size and the flowers, the appropriate.
The way we handle floral foam. This is a bucket of water that has been treated with the preservative. When you do this, you want to make sure it’s fully hydrated to get the best results and the longest lasting results. So, when you put it in your water you're going to want to make sure that it sinks. So, that’s just going to sit and hydrate. This can be purchased at any craft store like Michael's Joanne Fabrics, things like that.
Now maybe you don't want to do live maybe you want to do silks. May be this is a special Valentine’s Day, maybe you're getting engaged and you want something that you can save forever to remind yourself of the day. So, go ahead and try the same thing in silks. This is a little silk using little red silk carnations. Go ahead and do the same thing over and over again. You're using a different kind of foam this time, this is a grey foam. It’s for silks and drieds, again very easy to find at any craft store. And you just continue to push them in making your heart shape.
These containers of course right now you can go anywhere and find these little containers that are shaped like hearts. This is simple. If you do all the cuts yourself you could have a little kid do this, this is something easy to do with your children. This container, this is a little chipboard box, got this for a buck I think at Joanne Fabric. You can do this with the silks. Maybe your little kids want to put some stickers on there. Nice present for a teacher, easy to do.
This one is something that I do for myself every year. I love daisies and this is the time of year it’s so tough to get through February because of the long-lasting winters here in the upper Midwest. So, I always like to make myself a little daisy treat. Now when you buy a silk flower like this it’s going to come in a bunch and sure it would be easy to just stick them in a vase and call it a day. But when you cut them at different lengths and use the floral foam you get a fuller look. And what I've done here is added a little bit of silk greens. I can go ahead and add some height to it. I can use the floral pick such as happy Valentine’s Day. I could add more to it if I wanted to.
Something like this is going to sit on my kitchen counter until the tulips are coming up out of the ground.
Again, inexpensive dollar store little bucket, those are reusable. But I'll probably keep this and use it every year for quite a while. These are some ideas I hope that if you think about it now that I've talked about it maybe you could put your noodle together and think of some more ideas.
You don't have to be rich to play cupid. Spread the love around this Valentine’s Day.