I have always loved the idea of being that girl who always has beautiful bouquets of fresh flowers in her house on a daily basis. In reality flowers for me are a special treat, that I usually only pick up or receive on special occasions. Last week I decided to stray away from the norm and purchase myself three bouquets of fall flowers in staggering sizes, that I would later put in butternut squash vases. Since I am new to flowers I took a trip over to Quince Flowers and got in on a few tips and tricks on how to make the perfect fall bouquet. I think the bouquets and the vases turned out so beautiful and made my home feel like fall. The flowers and vases are still lasting almost a week later and I couldn’t be happier. These vases are the perfect centrepiece for a thanksgiving table, or to give as a gift. I think these flowers may have just turned me into that girl who always has flowers in her house.
Step 1: Purchase three butternut squash that are all slightly smaller than the other. Make sure that they can easily stand up on their own. Slice the butternut squash with a chefs knife about 1-2 inches from the top. Level out the top by gently scraping the knife along the top of the gourd.
Step 2: Using a long skinny glass press firmly on the top of the gourd. This will make a circle indentation that you will use as a guide for hollowing out your squash.
Step 3: Using a small spoon, larger spoon and even a ice-cream scoop, hollow out the gourd, leaving about an inch of squash around the walls. This part can be tricky and tedious, if you have someone who wants to pitch in (like my sister) I highly suggest it!
Step 4: Once your butternut squash are hollowed out, insert skinny glasses filled with water inside them. Don’t worry about the glasses sticking out, the flowers will cover most of that up when they are in the vases.
Step 5: Because I didn’t know too much about building a bouquet I received some help from the lovely Genevieve at Quince Flowers. I told her what I was looking for and picked out a few flowers that I thought looked like fall, and she suggested making each bouquet a little different and tying them together with some beech foliage.
Step 6: Genevieve and I chose to use a golden commercial chrysanthemum in the largest bouquet, along with red and orange dahlias, and yellow straw flowers. Using only yellow dahlias in one bouquet and the red in the other, made each bouquet different but complimented each other perfectly. We wrapped Beech Foliage around each bouquet to finish them off.
Step 7: Trim each bouquet with shears to fit into the squash and insert the bouquets accordingly.
