Lovely lavender

You might remember when I went a little nuts and bought four bunches of dried lavender at Trader Joe's... I can't help it, I LOVE lavender, and it's gotten to that point in the summer where all my plants are requiring more frequent watering, and cut flowers hardly last more than a few days before wilting because it is TOO DARN HOT! So buying a bunch of dried lavender seemed the perfect solution for my little table centerpiece container that's been holding a languishing little lavender for a few months now. I kind of squished it into the little container, and that may or may not have caused the languishing... But dried lavender is already dead - so PERFECT solution! :) Well, the lavender didn't quite stand up the way I wanted them to, probably coz the vase has a wide opening, so I needed to get some floral foam to stabilize them a bit. I finally got around to it this weekend, and it took all of 15 minutes (aside from the lovely aisle browsing at Michael's!), so here's how I did it:

You will need:

Dried flowers (or silk if that's what you like)

Floral foam

A knife

To start, use a knife to cut the floral foam to size - you want it to fit snugly into the vase or container you will be using.

Next, lay out the dried flowers on your counter/table/workspace. Begin to add the flowers, a few stems at a time, cutting them to the height you'd like the arrangement to be, as you go. If some stems break, put them aside and save them in case you can use them at the end.

As you begin to fill the container, turn it every now and then, to make sure that the arrangement is full and balanced from all sides (especially important for me as I planned to use this as a table centerpiece. When you are almost done, shake the container a little, and fix any stems that fall or lean over. I was very happy with how my new table centerpiece turned out - it is fragrant, simple and doesn't wilt in the heat! And I ended up with an extra bunch of lavender left over, to give to a friend :)