Winter Nesting Floral Arrangement and Centerpiece

7 Materials
$12
1 Hour
Easy

Create a ‘Winter Nesting’ Centerpiece for your table. This nesting-vase method is a decorative and easy way to hide your floral stems when using a glass vase for a flower arrangement. Customize your arrangement with the ‘filler’ or decorative material of your choice to match your decor or tablesetting.

My favorite way to use a glass vase when arranging flowers is with a ‘nesting vase’. To use this method, start with two vases, a smaller one to nest inside a larger one (round vases work too, they don’t have to be square).


You can find affordable glass vases at Hobby Lobby, Dollar Tree, Walmart and Michaels. Download Michaels and Hobby Lobby's mobile apps to your phone, so you can access their weekly 40% off coupon when you shop.

Use the material of your choice to fill your vase walls to coordinate with your theme or holiday. I’ve used hosta leaves, lemon slices and different types of candy for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas, in a glass vase using this method.


Fill the walls between your vases with your decorative material, which will conceal the flower stems. For my ‘Winter Nesting’ themed flower arrangement, I filled the walls of my vases with birdseed. The birds will enjoy the birdseed in our feeders after the flowers are spent!

I added a row of pine cones along the top of the vase for some additional filler and texture. Add water and floral preservative to the inner vase, and then you're ready to add your flowers.

For a long-lasting arrangement, add a packet of commercial floral preservative to the water that comes with your flowers. If you don’t have any floral preservative you can mix your own with this easy formula:


Mix one part lemon-lime soda (regular, not diet) to three parts water, along with 1/2 teaspoon of bleach. The citric acid in the soda helps the water travel up the stems to the flowers more rapidly, while providing food in the form of sugar. The bleach helps fight the growth of bacteria, allowing the flowers to stay hydrated and fresh.

Pine cones, twigs, a nest and bird ornament and some ‘nesting’ details and a finishing touch the arrangement. Use florist wire or hot glue to attach a floral pick to your pine cones and bird nest to add them to your arrangement.

I picked up a bunch of flowers from the grocery store~ alstroemeria, frilly mums, and one large hydrangea to add some snowy white blooms for a ‘Winter Nesting’ arrangement.

I used the same ‘nesting vase’ method for a smaller vase. Since the vase opening was so narrow between the wall of the vases, I placed a plastic grocery bag inside the inner vase, to keep it seed-free while filling the vase.

Remove the plastic bag and it's ready to fill with water and flowers.

Twigs placed in the vase among hyacinth blooms give a clip-on bird ornament a place to perch!

Here is the finishing 'Winter Nesting' Centerpiece. You can see how it looks at my 'Winter Nesting' Table, HERE. More photos at the blog link below!

Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Mary @ Home is Where the Boat Is
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Go
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
  1 question
  • Stephanie Rountree Stephanie Rountree on Oct 27, 2019

    Instead of soda why not just use citric acid? Also, would peroxide work instead of bleach?

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 40 comments
Next