Filling our Home with Flowers

 As long as I can remember I have loved flowers. I think that is pretty much a natural instinct that God put in all of us but it is one that I have encouraged and strengthened in my life. When I went to Bible college I purposely applied at all the floral shops to see if I might be able to get a job where I could work with flowers. I did get that job and it was a big blessing to me. Now I have my own little Wedding Flower Business (started in 2007) and so I still get to make money working with flowers (how fun!) but more than doing it as a business I love bringing flowers into our home to make our life a little more beautiful.

  Decorating with flowers isn't hard to do but there are a few little tips that will help your flowers stay nice a little longer.

 I like to save money so the majority of the decorating that we do with flowers is with flowers we pick from the wild. God made so many different beautiful flowers and many of them just grow on their own - what could be easier than that. This year has been super fun for me as we have been able to do more canoeing and I was just overwhelmed by the beauty of the blue flag iris that were all over around our place. I think they are so beautiful! It was fun to be able to pick some for the house without even seeming to make a dent on what was blooming near us.

 Vases are not hard to come by (second hand stores often have them for very little) but you don't have to have a vase for your flowers. Old jars like these olive oil jars work fine too. Jars work well for giving flowers as gifts because you don't have to be concerned with getting them back. The arrangements above were with leftover flowers from a wedding that I did flowers for. It was fun to be able to share them with others.

 To make your arrangements last as long as possible:

• Try to pick your flowers in the morning or anytime on a rainy day when they have plenty of moisture in their system.
• Cut the flowers off and put them directly in water.
• If you do pick a bunch and then bring them in and then put them in water by sure to cut their ends off again before putting them in water. The stems will clog up and not suck up water so cutting their ends helps them to be able to suck up the water. This is very important. You also should re-cut the stems every couple of days.
• Flowers like clean water. Try to change the water every couple of days.

 A while ago my sister asked if I would be interested in some Patron bottles that they had found in the woods near their house. I thought they sounded cool (as I love unique bottles for using for vases) and so I said yes but I do now understand why she got rid of them. We don't drink alcohol and don't want people to think we do either and so though I think they are pretty fun vases it is a concern at the back of my mind that somebody will think I drunk the stuff in it first. :-)

This cute arrangement above was the work of Jonathan and his little second cousin Cody. When they were visiting recently they came in from a canoe ride with the water lilies and found the jar and did their own arranging. I'm so glad that all my kids (even the boys) enjoy flowers.

  Do you often have fresh flowers at your place - at least during the summer? It is a really fun activity to do with your kids - go collect some wild flowers from the ditches and decorate your house!