Frugal Flowers.

When one lives on the Upper East Side, especially when said one is not of the financial prowess of the typical Upper East Side dweller, one learns quickly that most lovely things used to decorate the home in this neighborhood are quite pricey.  Case and point:  Diane James floral arrangements.  

Photo courtesy of Gracious Home

I was perusing Gracious Home’s Bed & Bath store one day when I spotted a slew of lovely floral arrangements, and was very pleasantly surprised to see that they were silk flowers in a hardened substance made to look like water.  What genius!  Beautiful arrangements that you never have to change the water for or see whither and die!  The only maintenance on them was dusting them off!  This was certainly something I could justify purchasing, right?  Oh, so very wrong.  To my chagrin, the price tag on these lovelies was anywhere between $350 for a small arrangement to nearly $600 for a dining room sized one!  Feeling a bit peeved at the audacity of their price tag, I set out to stick it to them by doing it myself, doing a better job at it, and doing it for much, much cheaper.  

I knew where to get silk flowers and vases, having pleasantly stumbled into the flower district before, so I started where I always start:  the internet.  I googled every possible combination of words to describe what I’d seen until I finally discovered this magical little epoxy that hardens to resemble water.  I quickly ordered some and set out to find suitable silk flowers.  After purchasing, arranging, and nervously mixing and pouring the epoxy (I was never a whiz at chemistry so mixing sticky chemicals has me a bit on edge), what came out was a lovely pink peony arrangement that my mother quickly coveted and then commandeered from my apartment to adorn her newly decorated bedroom. 

Taking the hint that I had a certain knack for this flower arranging business, I began making these arrangements, taking floral inspiration wherever I could find it.  The particular one below is one I made for my grandmother on her birthday.  Modeled after Kate Middleton, the new Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding bouquet and my grandmothers love of lily of the valley, I was quite smitten with the outcome of this particular piece.  The highest of compliments came when I was transporting the gift to my grandmothers home, and was asked by two women if I was bringing the bouquet home from a wedding.  When I replied that I had thrown it together myself with no training in floral arranging, AND that it would never die, I was met with utter bewilderment and questions of commissioned pieces.  I think the moral of the story in this case is:  if you can’t afford it, make it, and in turn, surprise yourself with a previously unforeseen talent! Recession-proof decorating at it’s best!