Faux Mums for the Win

It happens every year. I see the mums. I buy the mums. I kill the mums. I ignore the heartfelt, good intentioned advice on Instagram about soaking those bi*ches in water before I put them out. I get busy like the rest of us, and then one early October day, I pull into the driveway and have fried mums. Look how naive and optimistic I was in this first photo. Surrounded by flowers that were never going to make it. 

And yes, I rationalized the four-pack at Costco. Of which I curated my own color combinations thank you very much. I brought home multiple four-packs, year after year. Occasionally remembering to water them, even though mums are the thirstiest you-know-whats on the planet.

Then I started doing the math. Let me tell you there is quite a range in the faux floral department. I held off year after year, afraid to speand the money even though I was throwing it away on the real ones (we won't go into the pumpkin budget).

Well, let me tell you, this is the year. I don't know what turned the tide, but I spent a LOT of time researching this. Did you know you can spend HUNDREDS of dollars on artificial flowers? I wasn't about to do that knowing mine will be out in the sun, rain, and basically as neglected as my real mums. So let me save you the TIME and MONEY - I found the most beautiful faux mums.  Happiest labrador not included. I am so happy with the way these arrangements turned out, and each bundle was $9.99. Both pots cost only $30 in flowers. 

I purchased the flowers, spray painted pots I already owned, and got floral styrofoam domes - you WILL need those! Mine were white and even though I had plenty of flowers I didn't want white showing through so I hot glued Spanish Moss onto each dome before shoving the faux flowers into the dome. 

I started in the center of the dome and then worked my way around with moss, then did the same with flowers. I would definitely tear your moss and apply it in a box to catch the mess or outside in the grass - it is messy and gets everywhere. I started at the top and then worked my way around and down. The pots are 14 inches in diameter at the top and the 12 inch styrofoam domes nestled perfectly into the pots. See the photo of the dome with the moss in the pot. 

The flowers come in bags and you need to open them up a bit. I worked my way around the styrofoam dome in a pattern. 3 sets from Amazon did 2 14 inch pots. I absolutely love the way they turned out and my plan is just to cover them and take them out next year. How awesome is it that I can enjoy my front porch from September through November and never have to think about watering, throwing them away, etc.? Add it to the list of things I should have done YEARS ago.