Learn how to decorate with faux flowers with these simple tips. Beautiful ideas to add color and life to your spring decor.
Spring Decorating with Flowers
Spring is {almost!} here, and today it’s all about the flowers! I would love to be able to buy fresh flowers for our home every week, but unfortunately our budget doesn’t allow for that and I don’t have much of a green thumb. Thankfully artificial flowers have come a long way in the last few years and I love using them in our home. Decorating with faux flowers can still be beautiful and a few personal touches can really bring them to life. A high quality arrangement will last for years and can be used throughout your home year-round.
How to Decorate with Faux Flowers
I received a couple of beautiful artificial floral arrangements from Balsam Hill and had so much fun styling them for spring! Today I wanted to share some of my favorite tips to decorate with faux flowers and make them look more realistic.
Look, touch, and bend.
There’s definitely a wide range of quality when it comes to artificial flowers. There are three main things that I look for when choosing faux flowers:
- realistic colors. Look for colors that are more natural and not overly saturated – especially the greens.
- flexibility in the stems. I like stems that can be molded and fluffed to make a more realistic arrangement. Flowers don’t all look the same, so you don’t want your faux flowers to all look the same either!
- a more natural feel. Faux flowers might not feel exactly the same as real flowers, but I try to stay away from ones that feel real plastic-y. Not only do they feel super fake, but they also tend to be more stiff and not have the natural fall of real flowers.
Choose a couple of investment pieces.
Having one or two core investment pieces that you love can serve as a base for a variety of different vignettes and displays. Spending a little more money on an arrangement that will last for years to come, is worth it in the end. This Jane arrangement is probably my favorite arrangement from Balsam Hill. In a house full of boys, flowers are the one time that I actually get to use pink! This bouquet has an assortment of hydrangeas, anemone, roses, and berries and is so pretty. The acrylic water illusion and the hand-painted petals and leaves give it an amazingly realistic look.
Mix in a few fresh flowers or greenery.
Try mixing in a few fresh flowers – or even just some greenery from your yard – with your faux flower arrangements. It will give your design a fresher appearance and guests will never know what is real and what is artificial. A bundle of tulips is only a few dollars right now and just adds a little extra to this tablescape.
Use different vases or containers for the base.
Changing the vase or container that your arrangement is in can totally switch up the look and style. This beautiful Blue Viola Arrangement came with a pretty glass vase with a water illusion. By placing it in this olive bucket, it gives it a little bit of a more rustic, farmhouse look. The flowers look so realistic, and it’s nice to know that these ones will last despite my poor gardening skills.
Switch up your vignettes.
Since your faux flowers will last forever, it gives you lots of time to be creative and switch things up! Move them around the house and have some fun with them. Use them for a pretty centerpiece, place them on your bedside table, or brighten up your kitchen counter. After changing things around in our dining room, I decided to try out the look in our front entry. I just love the pastel colors of spring!
Even though it’s still cold and dreary here, I brought out some of my spring purses last week for a little bit of spring hope. My pink purse went perfectly with the Jane design.
In the end, I put the blue viola arrangement in our family room and the Jane florals went back into the dining room for my Easter tablescape.
I’m also still working on a little project using this provincial lavender garland. The lavender stalks come in varying shades of purple and pink, and are accented by silver-gray leaves for added depth. I ended up using some wire cutters and cutting my 6 foot garland into 4 foot and 2 foot sections. If I ever wanted the full 6 feet, it would be easy to wire it back together.
I’ve been looking for something to dress up our ladder in our family room and a 2 foot garland worked perfectly. I added some little battery operated lights around it as well. It’s so pretty when it’s all lit up!
More Spring Flower Arrangements
For more tips to decorate with faux flowers, check out these beautiful ideas from some of my favorite home decor bloggers. They’re sure to inspire you for for your spring and summer decor!
French Country Cottage / Liz Marie Blog
Finding Silver Pennies / The Idea Room
Craftberry Bush / Sand and Sisal
The Wicker House / Migonis Home
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia / Nest of Posies
More Spring Decorating Ideas
For more spring decorating ideas, check out these posts…
Quick and Easy Spring Decorating Ideas
Spring Cleaning in the Kitchen
I’ve already decided to invite Balsam Hill over for Easter. I love their flower collection! Our whole house is going to be filled with flowers. Love the ones you have.
lol! Yes they are a wonderful guest to have over! 🙂
Could you please tell me where you bought the olive bucket and the galvanized table in your entryway. Thanks. Johanna
They are both from Decor Steals – it’s a daily online site. 🙂
Thanks for the information Jenn. I am going to check out that website.
Johanna
Hi Jenn, I did check out Decor Steals just now and they do not ship to Canada. How do you get your stuff from them, since you live in B.C.? I live in Ottawa, Ontario.
Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Johanna
I live really close to the border so I get a lot of my products shipped to a shipping company in the US. I’m sure they know my first name by now. 🙂 Shipping to Canada is such a pain some times.
I wondered if you did that. I am less than an hour away from Ogdensburg, N.Y., and I think I could do the same thing – read about that somewhere not too long ago. Hmmm…. better renew my passport first though!
Thanks for your prompt replies. I really enjoy reading your blog and getting lots of ideas. If you find a really good Canadian site for decor and the like, would you let your Canadian readers know please, or even a U.S. site that has good shipping rates to Canada.
As a quilter, two U.S. sites that have great shipping rates and wonderful customer service are the Missouri Star Quilt Company and Connecting Threads. Even with the exchange rate you can get great deals from these two online quilting sites.
Thanks again for your help.
Johanna
I like your idea of mixing faux and real flowers on a table. Beautiful ideas.
Thanks Karen. The real flowers or greenery make it look so much more realistic!
Everything looks so precious and beautiful! Thanks for sharing his at the DI & DI Link Party.
Your silks are beautiful! Visiting you today from Keeping it Simple link up
Thanks so much! I’m glad you were able to stop by. 🙂
I love faux arrangements as well 🙂 These are lovely! I’d be honored for you to visit my blog and linp up on Support Your Fellow Crafter linky Party 🙂 Thanks!
Thanks so much Ginger!
Stunning! I feel happy just looking at your floral displays. Thanks for sharing with us at #OvertheMoon link party. I’ve pinned and shared.
These are beautiful. I use a lot of faux flowers, and try hard to find the realistic looking ones. Living in Alaska, the real ones have already been cut at least a week prior and you’re lucky to pay a fortune and get a bouquet to last three days. I’ve been totally impressed everyone’s Balsam Hill flowers as sponsored posts. The look really good!
I can imagine the price flowers would be in Alaska! Good thing you have so much natural beauty outside. Faux flowers have come a long way and these ones are probably the most realistic that I’ve found.
I like the lavender garland the best, but all are beautiful! Thanks for sharing at #HomeMattersParty
The next best thing to real lavender. 🙂 Thanks so much for hosting!
These faux flowers are stunning, Jenn! Yay for living close to the border… not sure how I would survive further north of the border 😉 Thanks for sharing!! xo
Beautiful arrangements. I love the soft colors! Makes me want to go check my stash and update around the house.
Thanks! Shopping around your home and current stash is the best! 🙂
These faux flowers are beautiful! I featured this one too!
The flowers, your table, home, EVERYTHING is beautiful 😀 Thank you for sharing with us at Funtastic Friday!
So beautiful! Featuring this week on Family Fun Friday!
Happy and Blessed Home
Thanks so much for the feature! Have a wonderful weekend!
I’m sold! Those arrangements are gorgeous. One thing that frustrates me in decorating magazines and books is how often the thing that really “makes” the room is a flower arrangement. Even if I wanted to spend the money to keep them fresh, they also take a ton of time. This is a great alternative.
One thing the lavender garland made me think of is essential oils. It would be fun to add a drop of an appropriate oil to the flowers. I have a dried lavender wreath in my laundry room, and every time I clean I drip a bit of fresh oil on it. The warmth from the dryer draws out the scent.
I totally agree! I love the idea of adding a little lavender essential oil!
I love what you did with these faux flowers, they look so real! I would like to include one picture, with a link back to your post, in a favorites post that I am currently writing. Please respond and let me know if this is not OK with you, and I will be happy to remove it. Thanks so much!