A Simple Table Arrangement

Wedding flowers can really blow the budget. They are SO expensive. A friend asked me to do her brothers' wedding flowers soon and, we've been discussing a cheap way to decorate the tables. I was a bit worried we wouldn't be able to come up with a suitable option here as we only had $20 left in the budget for 10 or more tables! At $3 stem minimum for most flowers (wholesale), we had to look outside of traditional arrangements. I happened to spot some succulents under a tree while I was out for dinner at my parents. And some flax. So this is what I came up with:

It's about 20cm in diameter and I am thinking a sml candle could be placed in the centre and it could be sprayed with glitter spray, for a bit of evening glitz.

So, here's some quick instructions for anyone who can't figure it out from the pic. The great thing about these is that they will be FREE. All you have to pay for is staples. Unless of course you know no one with succulents and flax (in NZ they're everywhere). And the succulents can be popped straight back in the soil after the event and they will happy re-root themselves in the garden (and the stem you cut off will also grow back again). I've used paper here as an example.

Take your flax, strip it in half (or less if you want it thinner) and fold like this with a tail out the front that will sit on the table under the loop (you'll trim this nicely later).

Staple it to hold the loop flat (you'll need a good stapler)

Cut the excess from the top tail

Trim the tail that will sit flat on the table on an angle like this

So you need to repeat this until you have 6. If you have a grunty stapler that will go through all the flax once you've stacked them together then ignore the next bit. My office stapler wasn't, so I took 2 loops at a time and stapled them together (that would opposite from each other on the arrangement, a bit like a bow would look). Then I grabbed one loop at a time, stapling it to anywhere I could comfortably get the stapler through on the flax of the other loops. Make sure you don't move the loops out of place as you go, ensure the loops are evenly spaced from each other.

Then I just placed a succulent on top, just sitting there (ensure the stem is short enough to achieve a nice flat surface). This will last out of water for days.