Spring into Spring

This time of year is hard for me. I love Spring, but I feel like I have to wait forever for my trees to turn green and for it to be warm enough to plant my colorful flowers.

Sure, I have a few daffodils in my yard that are fully blooming, but I love to fill my yard with lots of color.

With this in mind, I have been filling my house with colorful Spring items to get me by until my yard is in full bloom.

Spring Bouquet (for under $5!)

I saw these bouquets at my local craft store for $29.99. I thought they were really cute, but I wasn't going to spend that much for them! Instead I took a trip to the Dollar General down the street from my house. They have very cute flowers this time of year. While the flower bunches at the craft store may look a little more realistic, the Gerbera daisies that I love were $2.49 a flower (compared to the 7 that I got for a buck at the dollar store!)

Supplies:

• 2-4 bunches of your favorite silk flowers
• Glass Vase
• Ribbon
• Salt
• Glue Gun

1. First, I bought all of the supplies for this craft at the dollar store. I bought 2 bunches of flowers, the glass vase, the ribbon and the Salt for less than $5.

2. Glue the ribbon around the top of your glass vase. I liked the colored vases, but the clear vases also looked great.

3. Fill the vase with salt. Salt is cheaper than styrofoam and doesn't look as tacky in my opinion. It took me two containers of salt (but at 50 cents each at the dollar store, it's not bad).

4. Using wire cutters or needle-nosed pliers, cut the flowers from their bunches and remove any leaves. Arrange them very close together in your vase. The salt make it easy to stick the flower in the vase where you want it.

These bouquets are fun centerpieces for your table or they would look great on a mantle or shelf.

Spring Wreath

Make the front of your house warm and welcoming with this Spring flower wreath.

Supplies:

• Wreath Form
• Silk Flowers
• Glue Gun
• Wire cutters
• Ribbon or other Decorative items

1. Start with your wreath form. It can be made from grapevine, twig, straw, foam or wire. I like twig wreath forms, simply because they makes the wreath look more full without overpowering you with flowers.

2. Trim your flowers down and remove the leaves. Start placing your flowers at the center of the wreath and make your way towards the outside. Make a dot of hot glue in the twigs and poke the wire stem into the glue.

3. Place your flowers evenly around the wreath, moving outward as you go. I saved two stems of flowers and used them to fill in blank spots. To do this, I removed the flowers from their stems and glued them to the twigs in the wreath.

4. Decorate with other items such as crystals, fake berries or greenery in the same way as you did with the flowers. You can wind a coordinating ribbon around the wreath if you like.adult