$20 grocery store centerpiece

When it comes to floral arranging, I am so far from knowing what I’m doing, it’s actually quite comical.  My attempts at creating a floral centerpiece usually look more like my three year old arranged it, despite my best efforts, so I tend to stick with white hydrangeas en masse in beautiful, woven vases for a dramatic impact (also for the most bang for my buck as I can usually stretch them to almost three weeks).  

For Thanksgiving this year, however, I really, really wanted a dark and moody centerpiece for my table so I hopped into trusty old Trader Joe’s to see what blooms I could find.  Amidst a sea of sunflowers and mums, I ended up with one bunch of hydrangeas, one bunch of dark pink peonies and some random vase filler (not sure what they’re called but they were pretty!)  Not exactly what I was thinking when I was planning for “dark and moody”, and it actually looks more like what I would do for every other centerpiece, but hey…if it isn’t broke, right?  And you know what?  It was the best twenty bucks I’ve spent in a long time!

I used a large wicker hurricane from Amanda Lindroth (I have a smaller one from Southerly House and I LOVE it), filled it with water and a packet of flower food and got to work.  I started with the hydrangeas first; there were only three, so I placed one on the left, one on the right and one in the middle.  They’re so big and fluffy and are great for filling space.  I fit the five peonies around the hydrangeas and then tucked the vase filler in between.  So easy!  I’m sure everyone says that when they’re writing a post on arranging flowers, but for someone who has always been florally challenged, I can honestly say I had this whole thing done in five minutes! 

I threw a navy linen table runner out, along with my water hyacinth placemats from Pottery Barn to see how it would all look together and the dark inky hue is such a beautiful contrast to the pink and green!  I guess I got my dark and moody, after all, lol!  Can’t wait for the big day now and will be sure to post pics of my whole table all dressed up!