I am horrible at flower arranging. Honestly, I may as well just leave the flowers I buy with the rubberband on them and just shove them in the nearest vase. However, I love flowers! They make me happy. So I was super excited when I found a DIY flower arranging hack on Pinterest that claimed if used properly, all your arrangements will look professionally done. I decided to put it to the test…on live TV.

My first stop, as usual, was Thrift Town in order to get a variety of vases and bowls. Here’s the stash I picked up for around a buck each.

The hack called for created a grid pattern over the top of the vase entry using clear floral tape. I didn’t have any on hand, so I decided to try and use scotch tape and masking tape. Both worked. The thought behind the grid tape is that you insert the flower stems in the open squares and your flowers will stay where you put them, vs. flopping all over the place.

I also prepped a mason jar vase using chicken wire, doing the same job the tape grid does. I would recommend using a chicken wire that is a bit larger than the one I used if you plan on using flowers with larger stems. I had to actually snip a few of the wires to allow for my larger stems, which was a bit of a pain.

Now that the vases are prepped, time to add the pretties!

Here’s my completed flower arrangements. I simply kept adding flowers until most or all of the squares in my grid were filled up. I cut the flowers to heights appropriate to the size of the vase and bowl. Super easy and boy did this ever step up my flower arranging game! Great hack!

Here’s my live segment on Good Day Sacramento that explains this DIY hack in detail:

http://gooddaysacramento.cbslocal.com/video/9712530-thrifty-thursday/

Happy thrifting!

Gina Doglione-Nielsen is featured every week on Good Day Sacramento’s Thrifty Thursdays, and owns GNJ Consulting which handles Public, Social, and Media Relations for Thrift Town Stores. Gina lives in Northern California with her amazing husband Josh, and is constantly on the go with three “very active” and “strong personality” bambinos; aka Team Nielsen, and loves every minute of it.