How-to Arrange a Perfect Dozen

So the big day has passed and the cute little heart decorations have to come down. 🙁

If you were lucky enough to get roses from your valentine, I’m guessing that either you got them pre-arranged or you plopped them into a vase yourself.

I used to work at a florist, so my valentine was sweet and thrifty (the perfect combo in my opinion). He skipped the pre-arranged roses and gave them to me loose.

Don’t have floral experience? Let me show you how to arrange them!

Picture your roses in a vase as three rows:

level 1 with 8 roses (all the same height),

level 2 with 3 roses (a bit taller than 1), and

level 3 in the center with 1 rose (a bit taller than 2)

Fill your vase with water and just a bit of floralife from the packet.

That little packet is enough for one gallon of water, so if you have trouble restraining yourself, pour it into an empty water jug and fill it up with water. You can use this jug when changing the water in your vase, just make sure the kids don’t drink it. 😉

(no packet? sprinkle a bit of sugar into the water and stir till it dissolves)

Lay your roses so that the heads are even and remove only the leaves that would be underwater.

The leaves work as a pump for the flower, so you want to leave some on!

Push your vase close to the edge and hold a rose up to the vase and imagine how high you want it to sit, my roses at level 1 needed about an inch and a half off the bottom.

Hold the stem under water and cut on an angle. Cutting under the water will give the stem a burst of hydration.

Cut stems one at a time and lay in vase, overlapping each stem in the same fashion (either above the one before it, or under it). You want all of the stems to support one another and hold each other in place, and this weaving of the stems will accomplish that. Stop once you have eight stems overlapping at this level.

If you have greenery, babies’ breath, or any other filler flower, now is the time I like to add it. They may give you huge honking stems of babies’ breath, but you’re trying to showcase your roses, with just an afterthought of the BB. Cut them a few inches shorter than the roses.  

Add in your next row of three roses, just a bit taller than the row before it (I cut off 1 inch). Try to place the roses in a spot where the other roses, greenery, and BB will hold them up.

For your last rose, cut it just a tad bit higher than row two (I cut off a half inch) and place it in the center.

You should have a dome looking arrangement

And there you have it! The perfect dozen, just the way this former florist would do it.

Every day or every other day, be sure to change the water. You’ll want to get a firm grip at the base of the flowers, right above the vase, lift the bouquet, and change the water. Take out any loose leaves, trim the bottom of your bouquet, and plop back in!

This should help your roses last as long as possible.

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This V-Day,

we started the day with heart-shaped french toast (the leftover scraps for me lol):

I made a big ole 7 layer lasagna that you can see in the above pics (similar to the recipe of my stuffed shells), Doug used his lunch break to pick up the wireless router power cord that I left at my mom’s house (phew! the internet is back!), and also hung a few curtain rods I had been bugging him about.

He mentioned that he thought it would be cool to sit by a summer bonfire and play the harmonica, so I got him a kids’ harmonica. It was silly, but he loved it. 🙂

How was your Valentine’s Day? Did you do anything special with your Valentine(s)?