How To: Grocery Store Flowers to Valentine's Day Arrangement

Flowers and chocolates are timeless Valentine’s Day gifts, but if anyone is abusing your budget, its the flower companies. An average small Valentine’s Day arrangement is $50, and that’s before delivery. For part two of my Valentine’s series, I wanted to help you stay within your budget when gifting flowers.

In this next installment, I am going to teach you how to make your own arrangements for a fraction of the price using flowers you can find at your local grocery store! Your Valentine will swoon over the effort you put in, and it will be all the more special because of it. Let’s begin!

Step 1- Choosing the Right Flowers

When you go into your local supermarket this time of year, there’s a plethora of options to choose from. But I definitely advise against grabbing the first bouquet you see and gifting it as is. That’s just tacky. Take the time to select the type and/or color flowers your significant other prefers. A little thoughtfulness will go a long way!

To assemble a full, unique arrangement, you’ll need to buy more than one type of flower. Start with a focal flower. These are usually large blooms and the more popular flowers like roses, tulips, or sunflowers. One to two bouquets of those will suffice.

For my arrangement, I chose beautiful pastel roses as the focal flower.

Next you’ll need filler flowers. Florals like posies and carnations, and greenery like ivy will do the trick. These will go in-between the larger flowers to add pops of color and contrast to the arrangement. These flowers and greenery are usually cheaper so that’s a win! I chose carnations.

Step 2- Choosing an Appropriate Vessel

Sure, you can always gift a bouquet for Valentine’s Day, but I recommend going the extra mile to place the flowers in a pretty vase! This will save your Valentine some trouble, and makes gifting flowers complete. The “vessel” doesn’t have to be anything extravagant- in fact, Dollar Tree sells lovely vases that are perfect for beginner friendly arrangements. But if you’d like to go the fancier route, check your local TJMaxx or Marshall’s for more decorative (but still cost effective) options. For this arrangement, I used a vase I already had at home.

Step 3- Mapping the Arrangement

Now for the fun part! Mapping a floral arrangement may seem intimidating at first, but this is where you unleash all your creativity. A good rule of thumb is to place all your focal flowers where you’d like them, then fill in with filler flowers. Be sure to remove the leaves and cut the stems to the height of your vase first!

Also remember to step back and look at your arrangement as you’re working, and turn your vase all the way around! You want your Valentine to enjoy their flowers at every angle.

Here’s the final look for my arrangement! The total cost (without the vase) was less than $15. Talk about bougie on a budget!