Potatoez n' Pineconez: fall-time

Here are 3 cute floral arrangements I made for fall. These are lightweight and compact and will be easy to store off season.

I have seen several types of twig vases in decor stores, grocery and department stores. They are super easy to make! I used a sturdy cardboard tube cut to the height I wanted, then slid the twigs in between a rubber band and the tube, gluing in random spots. I made sure to paint the tube ( the second time! ) and painted the twigs after they were assembled.

I cut a foam ball in half and applied newsprint around it using paper mache paste, to ensure that if the foam ball breaks apart, there wont be bits of foam all over the place. This also helps to keep the flowers secure as I did not glue these in place, I just stuck them in the 1/2 foam ball.

It was somewhat difficult to attach the foam to the 'vase', I used alot of hot glue gun glue!

All of the flowers came form local dollar stores. The fall leaves came from Walmart a few years ago... I think they are still available and are .93 cents for a small bush. The pine cones, of course, came from my mom. I hot glued the pine-cones to skewers and stuck them in the arrangement.

I added a small piece of ribbon around the twigs to hide any glue and to cover the rubber band I used to hold the twigs in place.

not-sure why the one on the left looks so lopsided in this photo.....

....a happy family

I really needed something tall in this area, but I could not find something SLIM and TALL... so I made my own. I used a sturdy cardboard tube from wrapping paper and surrounded it with thin wispy twigs. I slipped an elastic around the cardboard tube to temporarily hold the twigs, spacing them evenly and adding a small amount of hot glue gun glue in areas. I painted those twigs with a dark brown satin paint and covered the elastic and glue-ey area with a small piece of copper ribbon.

I would like to add something else on top of the ribbon, but I am not sure what..... some plaid ribbon in fall colors perhaps?

ALSO; paint the cardboard tube the same color as the sticks before you begin gluing them on. I made this mistake and had to start over♥

Below; Back View

I cut out a square of foam and used regular white glue to adhere some grey tissue paper around the foam.... I added a quick coat of paint to this as well. ( I have removed some flowers to get a photo of the foam.....)

Here is a close up of the base of the twig 'vase'

I cut a foam ball in half and used this for my smaller flower arrangements. I used paper mache to cover the foam, and painted it with a paint I had on hand; a dark grey-ish brown.

I found these vines at the Dollar-Rama, I used the 'berries' for a few other floral arrangements in my home, and removed some single leaves to add to my fall-time floral's.

♥

I have my moments - where I am a master of bargain shopping. Sometimes I wonder about fabric land..... they seem to be a pricey for the quality of their products..... I found these ribbons for .5 cents a meter... so of course I bought the whole spools..... I used the copper one on the far left to disguise the elastic and glue that I used to hold my twig 'vase' together.

It pays to pop into fabric land every once and while, they seem to really reduce the price on seasonal items, which is nice.

$1.43 for all that ribbon!!!!!

and here are the things I glues to the base of my twig 'vases'

They are from the scrapbook section of my favirote dollar store in my town. I painted them black and glued them onto the base of my twig vases, to provide a bit more stability and to prevent scratches to surfaces.....

♥

Here are my Fall 2009 flower arrangements

With exception of the pine-cones...... everything from my local dollar stores.

Firstly I love pipberry's

I found these at the dollar stores and literally bought them ALL! well, all the green and white ones. I left the pink and baby blue pip berry's for someone else♥. (they were 0.99 CAD each )

I un-wired them from the long thick stem they came attached to and literally inserted them into every floral arrangement in my home last fall, and used them for x-mas decor as well.

Anyhoo- last fall, while looking around for floral decor, I noticed that alot of the arrangements at the stores were very sparse, and -really- fake looking. So i whipped up my own. I hopped over to my local dollar stores and picked up several bunches of flowers as well as some greenery = viola.

I'll likely change up my 2010 fall floral's, I am really into foliage and texture and contrast lately and not so much into actual flowers. I cannot have enough pine cones around, that's for sure..................