DIY Pink Halloween Floral Arrangement

I made this pink Halloween floral arrangement for my pink Halloween party (coming soon!) and I’m so glad I DIY’d it! Flower arranging is just one of those skills where practice makes perfect. But, it also helps to start with the foundation of good technique. I’ll walk you through my best tips so you can make your own pink Halloween floral centerpiece — or any flower arrangement!

For any party, I try to figure out what crafts, styling and baking I want to do myself and what I want to outsource. I’ve left the flower arranging to the pros at my daughters’ Boho Picnic Sweet 16 Party and at their High School Graduation Party. But for this Halloween party, I decided to let others do most of the baking, while I handled everything else.

Decide where your flowers will go

If you’re making a centerpiece for a dining table like I was, then you know your flowers will be seen from all sides. That means you’ll need more flowers than if the arrangement would only have one-side forward (like if it would sit on a dessert table).

Pick Your Vase

I could not resist this ghost bucket from Walmart. It’s about 8 inches x 8 inches and oval shaped — just the right scale for my table. Knowing the size and that the arranging would be seen from all sides helped me choose the right amount of flowers. I picked flowers from the grocery store and just eyeballed the right quantity. At the store, bunch all your stems together so you can picture how the buds will look in the vase.

Choose Your Flowers

I usually look for big blooms or blooms that can open up. You want a variety of sizes but buying big blooms also lets you buy fewer flowers and keeps your costs down. You also want strong stems. For this arrangement, I chose:

• Orange Gerbera daisies
• Pink snapdragons
• Orange cluster roses
• Pink cluster roses
• Light pink carnations
• Baby’s breath to use as filler instead of greenery

My total was about $50.

I also added small branches (about 2 feet long) and large sticks gathered from my backyard to add drama and structure to the arrangement.

Prepare Your Flowers

Before making the floral centerpieces, I trimmed the ends off of each flower and stored everything in another container. Fill the container about halfway with cool water and a packet of floral preservative. This gives the flowers a chance to acclimate to your home and refresh the store cuts to absorb more water.

Help the Flowers Open

For flowers that aren’t fully open, turn them upside down and gently roll the stems between your hands. You also can run your fingers inside flowers like roses and carnations to encourage them to open fully.

Consider the Arrangement

If you think about your arrangement in thirds, you want the flowers to take up about 2/3 of the space (height and width) and the vase to take 1/3 of the space. That puts the focus on your flowers more so than on your vase. Even if you pick a loose, minimalist style and don’t need as many flowers as you might for a fuller arrangement, you’ll want to stick with these proportions.

Begin with Structure

Place four or so branches/sticks criss cross in the vase to provide structure for the flowers. The branches/sticks should extend out beyond the flowers.

Add the Biggest Blooms First

Start creating your basic shape by placing the largest blooms first. I added the Gerbera daisies at various heights in the ghost vase to help me create an asymmetrical arrangement. 

Add Filler

Instead of greenery, I used baby’s breath as filler and placed that all around the base of the arrangement. Once all my other flowers were in place, I also used baby’s breath to fill any gaps.

Add Height

I used the snapdragons to add height on one side of the arrangement and to extend the flowers horizontally on the other side.

Fill in with Clusters of Flowers

With height and width established, I now just had to fill in with the other flowers. Pick one type of flower at a time to place throughout the arrangement. Adding flowers in groups of three or more can create more impact. Picking cluster roses made this easy because I already had a group of flowers but just one strong stem to deal with.

Trim Stems as You Go

If you’re not sure how much to cut off each stem, hold the flower against the vase and view it at eye level. Remember: you can always cut a stem shorter, but you can’t add height back once it’s gone. Criss-cross the stems for support as you add them to your vase.

TIP: As I’m trimming the stems and removing lower leaves, I drop them all into a grocery bag. It makes clean up easy.

Step Back to Check the Shape

Pay attention to the shape you’re creating. I was going for an asymmetrical shape. Turn the vase as you work so you can look for gaps on each side. Also look at the arrangement from above. Fill in any gaps.

Snap a Photo

Place the finished arrangement on your table and look at it from all angles. It helps me to take a few quick photos of the flowers. It seems like “problems” show up in the photos that you don’t see with the naked eye.

Leftover Flowers?

If you have leftover flowers, create a separate smaller arrangement. It’s always nice to have flowers in the kitchen or bud vase in the powder room. If the flowers in your centerpiece go over, you can pull from your backup flowers and replace blooms as needed.

Every day or so, top off the water and floral preservative in your vase. Your centerpiece should last five days or so, although I always try to arrange my flowers the day before the party, just in case.