5 Tips On How To Decorate With Faux Flowers

Hi there all. I'm excited to share with you today some tips in using faux flowers to decorate. For me flowers mean Spring which I'm so looking forward to. Spring means summer is near! 

I love plants and flowers but flowers die and unfortunately I don't have a green thumb so often my plants die as well. This is where my faux plants and flowers come in.

Years ago faux flowers and plants looked fake. I hate anything fake so I didn't use them in my decor.

Today more and more plants and flowers are looking so real that I honestly couldn't tell the difference. Unfortunately there are also many that still look fake, that's why knowing where to shop is a time saver.

One shop that sells realistic looking flowers and plants is Ikea. Good old Ikea, where would we be without them! They are also priced very reasonably. 

I've seen some lovely faux plants in many shops but they've been too expensive for my budget. Now even our $2 shops are stocking some, not all, but some very real looking flowers. KMart is also producing faux plants that look quite real.

The photo below is showcasing two faux plants and flowers.

The plant on the wicker chair is from KMart and the flowers are from a $2 shop. Do you think they look real?

  

The pot plant is called string of beads but I'm not too sure what the name of the flowers are.

These  faux plants are in a $1 wooden box from Salvos that I attached some hessian (burlap) to and used on the top of my vintage wicker baskets from my local thrift store.

I don't have to worry about the usual things with real plants such as enough light and water and I love that!

I also used the faux succulents in another post recently. 

This faux plant and base is also from KMart. It sits happily on my dining table.  My dining area faces west so gets a lot of hot afternoon Queensland sun which is hard on plants. Not with this plant!

This cute little plant with flowers was from my local thrift store. You can see my beach style entry and prices for my thrift store finds here.

The small blue box that you see peaking out was a $1.50 find from the Salvation Army which I distressed. It's a handy box to have at the entry to keep keys and change or whatever you wish.

This is where my desk sits with it's gold decor.  I simply spray painted a recycled tin and added some faux silk flowers

With the gold framed mirror and 2 gold frames it adds a nice touch and took literally minutes to put together

Here is the entry to my home again. You may have seen it in an earlier post that I mentioned before

My 5 tips for finding great faux plants is :

1.  Know where to shop for reasonably cheap plants.

2. Learn to discern at a glance what looks cheap and what doesn't.

3. Faux plants don't need watering (yeh!) but they need to be washed from time to time. Nothing looks worse than dusty looking plants. I wash mine in warm water with just a small bit of dishwashing liquid whenever they need it.

4. You can mix real plants with faux plants if you can't find what you need for your display, at a reasonable cost.

5. Make your own plants! There are many great tutorials on Youtube and Pinterest to learn how to make realistic looking plants. I particularly love the cotton stems. They are next on my to do list.

I hope these 5 tips have given you some ideas on using faux plants and flowers. In the northern hemisphere autumn is approaching which is a great time to use them. Then again anytime is good for decorating with plants, I call them living art!

Till next time take care

How I Decorated My Entryway With hardly any Money

I have spoken to a number of people lately that are struggling to pay their bills let alone having extra money to decorate their homes. I can empathise with them because I have been in the same boat myself. I know the frustration of seeing furniture and decor that you would love to buy but know that there is not a hope in hell!

I am here to show you that you can have a home you love with a little bit of creativity. Firstly second hand stores or thrift stores are a girl's best friend! You can purchase furniture, decor accessories and more if you can visualise what an item can look like with a bit of elbow grease, paint, or other diy ideas. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about I am going to give you a rundown on how I decorated my entryway with hardly any money

I'll start off with my entry console. I purchased this at a second hand shop (thrift store) near me for $25. It was just the right length and width. It had white mosaic tiling on the top which I thought I would remove but once I got it home and started to decorate it I decided I liked them. So for now they are staying. The next on the list is my wall art. I think art is a way of expressing what you love. For me it is the water, ocean, rivers, and lakes. Anything associated with the ocean such as boats as you will see!

The colours I love to use are teal blues. If you'd like to see my colour palette I've used these in one of my earlier posts. Check it out here

I also love to collect shells and driftwood from the beach and display them. Cost? Nothing. I have two wonderful grandchildren that live in Rome, Italy and I only see them every 2 years. They are also water babies. Shells that we collect together I love to display and they bring back many happy memories. I'll be doing a post on this in the near future.

I have given you the prices of the decor I used for my entryway below so that you can see it is possible to decorate with hardly any money.

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The blue keepsake box above I've decorated is in an earlier post. You can find how I did this here

I wasn't able to get the console in the photo so here's another one showing more of it. Sorry about the light, it's been pouring rain here in sunny Queensland!

For around $45 I was able to decorate my entryway. What do you think? Are you inspired to do a little hunting? If you are on a seriously strict budget like me and have hardly any money to decorate with and you like what I've done, give it a go! It's a great feeling to accomplish this and so much fun searching for the right pieces. Let me know in the comments if you have any projects to share, I would love to hear them. Take care

Easy Vintage Thrift Store Upcycles

Last week I made a deal with myself I wouldn't go to the thrift store until I had finished a couple of other DIYs I had planned. Does anyone else do that? I was being very good until my friend Martha rang and asked me to go with her. Such a bad influence! I said no at first but by the end of the conversation, it changed to yes, but I was only going to buy some books. Famous last words! I started off well, but it didn't take long before I spotted some great timber pieces to upcycle. I was arguing with  myself that they were a real bargain and they would look great after a redo!  So again... I gave in. I know, I know! I also said I would spend my time finishing these projects before I started on anything else! We'll see how it goes.

The great thing about these projects is that they take very little time to do. So for me that's a win! If you are unable to spend any money but would love to update your decor, vintage thrift store finds are the way to go and you can decorate them in your own taste.   

Firstly this timber framed vintage pears print. I've always loved these and I loved the timber frame but I wanted a lighter fresher look. I knew I could give it a new lease of life so into my stash it went.

Wood framed Pears print (before)

Here is the "after". I decided to give it a more distressed look. I did this with dry brushing. I start with a dry brush and only a tiny bit of paint on the end of the brush. If you feel there is too much paint just wipe the brush on a paper towel until you have the desired amount. 

After

I gave it two coats but even so it was a quick makeover.


The next vintage item is a jewellery box. It was a bit bland but I knew I could jazz it up with some paint and paper

I decided to paint it a soft pink colour with a distressed finish. Again I used my homemade chalk paint which is simply acrylic paint, or latex in the USA, and Plaster of Paris mixed together. I mixed about 2 tablespoons of POP into a small amount of water and added this to half a cup of paint. Stir well. Chalk paint is rather expensive and I didn't want to spend money on my vintage thrift store finds plus it is so easy to use

Next to give it some extra character I painted a stencil on the lid.

I had some wrapping paper I'd already used so decided to line inside the top and the drawer on the bottom. I used mod podge, again homemade, to glue it in place. The last step was to spray inside and out with a sealer and I was finished.

If you would like to make your own Mod Podge it's simply mixing a cup of craft glue with a cup of water and storing it in a recycled glass jar.  

Before

After