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Patriotic Sunflower Centerpiece
Throw together some simple sunflower centerpieces for your next summertime party. Add an American flag to create an instant Memorial Day, Labor Day, July 4th, firefighter, Olympics party tie-in!
Last fall we threw a fire truck themed birthday party for the kids.
I knew that I wanted simple centerpieces and that I needed a bunch of them. We had a fairly large crowd (60+ people) in attendance so we rented tables and folding chairs from a local party supply company. I wanted to put some floral centerpieces on the tables and have a couple centerpieces left for the table and island in the kitchen (where all of the food was served).
I wanted something BRIGHT and fresh, VIBRANT and full of SUMMER sun. My mind quickly went to sunflowers and that’s where it stayed! I’m a sucker for anything in a mason jar, so they were a must. Plus we already owned a ton of them so that saved us some money and eliminated the need to buy vases!
I wanted to decorate the jars but keep it simple, country-ish. I grabbed a roll of red raffia at Michael’s and we tied this in long, loose bows around the neck of each jar.
Once we decided on sunflowers, it was a bit of a chore to find a super affordable way to buy them in bulk. We needed about 50 stems – 6 for each table centerpiece (6 tables) and then 7 in the two centerpieces in the kitchen.
We contemplated growing our own sunflowers but didn’t want to chance a failed crop. We reached out to a few local farms that offer pick-your-own flowers but because our party was at the very end of September, their flowers had all hit their peak a few weeks prior. We finally had success when we contacted a local florist who was willing to sell us the flowers basically at wholesale cost. We scored 50 stems at 50 cents/stem. Grand total was $25.
Assembly was pretty crazy simple. We picked up the sunflowers the day before the party and kept them outside, stems in a bucket of water. On party day, we cut all of the stems shorter and removed the leaves. We rubberbanded the stems together to keep all of the flowers upright and looking nice.
The final touch added to this All-American centerpiece, making it just perfect for our firefighter party, was a small American flag. We found our flags on post-July 4th clearance at Party City for just 10 cents/each.
So with 6 blooms per jar, our centerpieces cost just $3.10/each plus a few cents for the piece of raffia. Not bad!
And because I had no idea what to do with 50 sunflowers, I let the friends who closed out the party each take a centerpiece home with them. Minus the jars. No way am I giving up my precious lovely crafty mason jars. ;)
Patriotic Sunflower Centerpiece
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