How to Prepare a Homemade Bouquet for Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is a time to honor your mom, or even your wife if you have children, and one of the time honored traditions for this special day is to give flowers.  For some, giving these as gifts simply means that they will run down to the grocery store after work  and pick out the first bouquet that they find.  Others might have a little more forethought and actually place an order for a bouquet beforehand.  However, as nice as they might be, they don’t have that special touch of being homemade or personalized.

Instead of buying prearranged bouquets for your mom, you might want to try a new approach and make your own. You’ll save money as well as learning a new skill. 

For starters, find out what kind of flowers your mother loves the most.  If you know her favorite flowers, congratulations – you are already ahead of the game.  If you don’t know, ask some of her friends or other family members.  Pick them up at your neighborhood florists or farmer’s market – flowers are very cheap to buy when they’re not pre-arranged. 

Instead of having them arranged by the people at the shop, you should choose your own vase and do the arrangement on your own.  Pick several types of flower that she likes and snip all the ends off with a pair of scissors. Try to keep them all the same length, and always cut at a slight angle to allow more water into the flower.  Trim off all leaves that are within 3-4 inches of the bottom of the stem, and carefully remove any thorns and dead leaves by hand using a small blunt knife.  Arrange in the vase, then tie them around with string to keep the arrangement in place.

Something else that you might want to do is to decoupage the vase with pictures of family.  Dig out lots of fun photos and use decoupage glue to stick the pictures to the vase (don’t attempt this with a round shaped vase!). Coat the vase with a finish to protect it so that it doesn’t matter if it gets wet. Then, even after the flowers are gone, she will be able to keep the beautiful vase and look at it throughout the year.  The personal touch is something that she will appreciate and remember for years.