Most of you already know how much I love fresh flowers! A few weeks ago, I created three medium sized arrangements for a church event and thought I’d share the process with you. 🙂

I had a $30 budget for 3 arrangements. I purchased most of the flowers at Trader Joes and bought the beautiful blush carnations at my local Hyvee. I try to buy flowers with different colors and textures. I’m that person at Trader Joes who has 5 or more bunches in her hand, spending 10 minutes trying to decide if they look good together or not!

I almost always end up with carnations. I love carnations, because even though they are inexpensive, they have a nice full bloom that is soft and fairly large.

When I bring the flowers home, I immediately place them in water. If I am going to wait a bit before I make arrangements, I unwrap them, remove all leaves below the water line of the bucket and make a fresh angled cut so that the flowers can soak up as much water as they can!

I purchased these three clear vases at The Dollar Tree!

Here is what I brought home! Look at these beauties!

When I’m ready to begin, I fill my vases with water.

Then I start with the greens! I bought two bunches of eucalyptus, so I opened them up and divided them roughly into three.

I made sure to cut the stems at an angle.

I’m pretty generous when I put my greens in my vases. I can always cut them down more, but I can’t re-grow stems. 🙂

There are those wild greens!

Next, I added in the pretty white flowers, also from Trader Joes.

Then the carnations! I only had two per arrangements, but they made a great impression!

Lastly these beautiful orange-ish roses!

When I’m finished dividing all of the greens and blooms among the three vases, I go back and tweak the shapes of the arrangements if I need to.

I really loved how full and pretty these arrangements turned out, and for only $30!