The Rose – Vintage and Thrifty Styling for the Home

Another quick win in my world of room decor is the rose. This post was originally going to look at flowers in general in the home. It would appear however, I have way too many ideas to share in one post. And so today, in the third part of our mini series Vintage and Thrifty Styling for the Home we will focus on the beautiful and elegant rose and all she has to offer. Plus I’ll also be showing how with a little structure and form to your chosen vase, you too can create a simple and elegant display…

In my opinion the success of a beautiful flower display in the home, is as much attributed to the vessel you choose for the display, as the flowers themselves. Take for example the classic single rose. In the first photo this beauty is not looking her best. Yet in the second shot she is far more striking and worthy of a second glance. The tall, thin, clear glass vase was perhaps a better choice than the same colour vase in her first pose.

Next the rose is teamed up with a bit of greenery and then with greenery and gypsophila; each time offering a different look. Using the same vessel and with a little help from her friends, this rose is afforded a different and beautiful look for different room decor ideas.

No matter how expensive or inexpensive, colourful or neutral, big or small the flower, different vases, jars, jugs or bowls will make a huge difference to your end result.

Take these inexpensive deep pink roses on the left for example. At just £3 and teamed up with twisted hazel from the garden, they make my coffee table come alive. This versatile ‘vase’ is infact a hurricane lamp and usually part of my candle decoration. On the right the same money has been spent on yellow roses being displayed here in a car boot sale jug, offering another beautiful look.

Now these next pink roses were to my thrifty heart, an excellent buy. £2.09 for eleven (why not twelve?) they came from a well-known budget supermarket. They looked beautiful in their first throw displayed like the pink ones above in the hurricane lamp.  And as they died off I saw another opportunity and chopped them down to fit in my car boot find glass bowl for a second display befitting my room decor scheme.

Not content with just two purposes, when these pretties could give me no more as a display, the colourful petals were gently pulled from their stems, placed on a kitchen tray in the airing cupboard and left to dry thoroughly. A few days later crispy rose petals were teamed up with previously dried lavender heads and tossed back into this glass bowl for a quick win potpourri. These cheaper roses have no scent of course: A few drops of essential oil mixed in, ticks that last box. Not bad for not many pennies. Sadly no photo to share of that potpourri althugh potpouri is another wonderful room decor idea.

This one in the making however, contains sweetpeas and lavender collected this summer.  Once dried the delicate petals will be stored in an airtight glass jar and kept in a dark place until next spring. Then I’ll combine the pretty mix with a sweet-smelling potion of light essential oils, package beautifully and gift to a friend. All for a fraction of the shop bought stuff and with no synthetic smells at all.

This summer Little Miss received a beautiful bouquet from her boyfriend full of roses. I too enjoy her flowers, not least because they sit beautifully on our dining table. Also over the course of several bouquets, the boyfriend has decided Little Miss favours white and cream to any other colour, which is quite odd as so do I. When most of the latest bunch had given up, two roses still had a little life left in them.  So I cut them down, teamed them with garden lavender and put them in pretty glass vase. All for Little Miss’ pleasure you understand. If you saw this post a few weeks ago, you will remember my love of vintage books as styling pieces.  I used my favourite faded red fairy tale book to team up with the rose display and this is the result we enjoyed.

And finally for this week the beauty in dried rose heads is not lost on me. Recently Mr M brought home the contents of another skip. In amongst some treasures was this time-worn china tureen.  It was dirty and chipped and had been tossed out as rubbish. Together with books from his last skip find and a few dried mini rose heads, we got to enjoy this sweet vignette. It cheers my heart to see so much beauty in the more simple things in life. It’s a double cheer for me if the beauty is inexpensive too. Until next week…x