Un-Fuss Your Fake Flowers
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I enjoy decorating with fake flowers. Yes, I’ll admit it. I know they’ve long had the reputation for being 1980s dusty hideous relics of your grandmother’s cozy-but-a-bit-dowdy style, but they absolutely don’t have to be. I’d like to share some tips I have to use fake florals in a fresh and romantic way.
-Be very picky on colors. Dollar Tree is my favorite place to get my faux florals. The low-cost makes me feel less precious about them, and gives me allowance to play. But Dollar Tree has some terrible looking floral options. They also have, if you dig through the quantity of one-color, garish options, a good quantity of options that look much better than you would expect. Look for subtlety of color, or if you need a bright and vivid shade, limit it to one or two in your arrangement mixed in with softer colors to let the eye rest. And on the picks themselves, look for color or shade variation in the blossom. A bloom usually has pistils that shade to different hues either subtly or sometimes brightly (in the case of pansies).
-Consider faux greenery as well. Dollar Tree, if you catch them at the right point in spring, has a line of faux ferns and greenery that is incredibly high quality for the price.
-Don’t be precious about the floral picks. One clump of faux flowers is known as a “pick,” and once you purchase that pick, there’s absolutely no reason why you have to keep it all in one piece. Invest in some good craft wire cutters, or just use some scissors and hack away at the wire and plastic stems. There’s absolutely no reason why you can’t dismantle your pick and use it however you need to.
-Don’t be precious about the blooms. There’s also no reason why the blooms on your faux flowers have to stay on the stems. Or the petals all together on the blooms. I’ve broken apart flowers to stick into arrangements with ivy vines, I’ve cut apart petals to glue onto a moon to make it look like it was made of flowers. The less traditionally you use your faux flowers, the more believable they are sometimes.
-Mix real with faux. Of course mixing real flowers with faux flowers is a strategy that’s only going to work short-term for a special event. But it works well. And if we’re talking long-term décor ideas, the idea of real with faux can still be helpful. In this case, I mean…add some faux dogwood stems to an arrangement of dried branches from the woods. Take some real moss and tuck faux florals in and around it. The blend of real and faux deceives the eye, and makes things more believable.
-Make your own arrangement. Most craft stores have a section in their florals of pre-made arrangements. And there’s an artistry to this. But for your home, many of these pieces are too rigid. Not to mention you don’t get the satisfaction of creating your arrangement yourself. Ditch the pre-made stuff, and also…
-Keep it loose. Don’t try to cram too many things into one arrangement. Vary the shapes of your elements too, using tall slender items and short rounded items as well. The eye wants places to rest, but also wants to be stimulated. And just to be entirely contradictory, I also have to admit that even though you don’t want a tightly compacted arrangement, you also want to bear in mind that some of your fake flowers may look even more fake if they are too separated out and on display. That’s when it comes in handy to combine your faux with real, as mentioned above, to fool the viewer.
-Ditch the vase. Decorate objects and areas you wouldn’t expect. I don’t literally mean to never put your faux flowers in a vase, but do also consider twining them through your light fixtures (with caution, never too near a bulb) or scattering them on a table. Give them to your statues you keep out on display to hold. Tuck them above your bathroom mirror. Arrange them in a pair of gorgeous artisan-made shoes you normally save for special occasions. Basically, ask yourself if a bevy of flower sprites came into the house each carrying a handful of flowers, where would they bedeck your house with their gifts?
-Canned air is your friend. If you’re going to be keeping your faux flowers out for a long period of time, don’t forget to dust them occasionally, to keep them looking fresh. I’m a bit guilty of forgetting to do this, but then my whole house often has a gentle glossing of dust over it. Canned air can especially be helpful for this.
So there you have it! I hope if you’ve been a bit hesitant about using faux florals in your décor, you’ll consider trying it a bit more now. Please let me know if you have any questions or found any of these tips useful for your own decorating!
This blog post was suggested by a follower. Thank you so much for the idea!
