Polka Dot Flower Arrangements

For the Cute As A Button shower I made these flower arrangements in polka dot pots.

I took a 2 hour flower arranging class a few years ago and surprisingly a couple things stuck with me.  I really enjoy doing this and it is easier than you might think.  I apologize, but the pictures below all ended up washed out.  I blame the bad lighting in my kitchen.

You will need wet flower foam (make sure it is the wet kind).  It comes in a block, but you can cut it easily with a knife. 

It doesn’t need to fill the entire space, just fit inside and close to the top of the container. Fill up a large container of water or the sink with water and let the block of foam float and it will slowly fill with water and fall to the bottom. Then place it into your container.

Next you will need flowers.  I bought these bunches at Sam’s Club.  For these arrangements I used white mums, pink, red, and purple carnations, and yellow roses.

You will begin by cutting the the flowers into individual stems and remove all the leaves.

The next step is to open up the roses.  You do this by removing 5-6 outside petals.  Then using your finger, starting from the outside, run it in circles towards the center of the flower.  This will loosen the petals and make them fuller.

Now it’s time to build the arrangements.  I used three roses and put those in first in a circle near the center.  Then fill in the top part of the arrangement with the other flowers mixing the colors around. 

Here’s a view from the side so you can see about how high I started the arrangements. 

Now, all you need to do is keep filling in around the bottom alternating colors.  I did this by adding one color of carnation throughout, then another color, and then the third color.  I finished by adding in the white mums as an accent color throughout the colors. 

And voila!  Four simple bunches of flowers turned into unique and beautiful arrangements!  For those curious about the cost, the containers were on clearance for $3 each, the wet foam is about $8 which was enough for all four pots, and the bunches of flowers were about $36.  So each arrangement cost me $14. 

Cute As A Button!

My coworker is having her first baby next month.  We hosted a shower for her last night at work and we chose “Cute As A Button” as our theme.  It was a lot of fun to put together and I think it turned out so cute! 

Another coworker looked to Pinterest and saw the idea of using colored paper plates and adding black dots to make them look like buttons and then strung them together with curling ribbon. 

I made cupcakes and decorated them with chocolate buttons using a mold.  I found a blog with button cupcake wrappers and toppers, which brought everything together nicely.

My coworker also found these cute tins with a flower and button in the center.  She filled them with pillow mints and were a cute favor for everyone to take home.

I also made these flower arrangements using polka dot pots I found on clearance at Stein’s last fall.  I was just waiting for the opportunity to use them, and they were perfect for the shower.