Today I'm sharing twelve easy ways to display summer garden flowers.

Today I’m thrilled to be participating in the Late Summer Flower Power Blog Hop hosted by my friend Cecilia at My Thrift Store Addiction. If you are visiting directly from Cecilia’s blog, or if you've just come over from Kim's blog, Exquisitely Unremarkable, welcome! I'm very happy to have you here!

I've mentioned this in my newsletters, as well as on Instagram, but I'm going to say it again here: you don't need expensive vases to display your garden blooms. To the contrary, all you need are some inexpensive thrift store or estate sale finds that can double as pretty and practical vases for those blooms.

Honestly, I've photographed so many different flower garden bouquets this summer that I had a hard time deciding which ones to share. Seriously. I have fresh cut flowers every day. And a plethora of thrifted vessels to put them in. But for the purposes of this post I decided to settle on 12 of them. Hopefully they'll give you some ideas you can implement on your own.

 First up is this thrifted blue and white porcelain creamer that says "Made in China" on the bottom. There's no maker's mark but that's okay because I love it just the same. It may be vintage but I'm not sure. You can read about it in Thrill of the Hunt #110 and see what other gorgeous flowers I used it for.

Next is a similar vessel, only this time it's definitely vintage and has a maker's mark. It's made by Wood & Sons of England and the pattern is called Buddha. I got it for $5.00 at an estate sale. You can read all about it in Thrill of the Hunt #103.

This is one of the first vintage milk glass bud vases I ever purchased for all of $3.00. I filled it with garden zinnias as well as fresh boxwood stems from one of the boxwood bushes out in the yard. It's always nice to be able to add a bit of greenery to a bouquet. You can read about this "Stars and Bars" milk glass vase (as well as another vintage milk glass vase in a different pattern) in Thrill of the Hunt #104.

Our yard is filed with hydrangea bushes, so I'm always cutting bunches to bring inside and place around the house. I mixed some pink and purple ones here, placing them in a $5.00 estate sale chinoiserie ginger jar. It has a lid which I just take off when I use it as a vase.

For this zinnia bouquet I added garden herbs as greenery -- rosemary, basil and thyme. Herbs add contrasting color as well as great aroma! This vessel is a Johnson Brothers England Royal Ironstone China water pitcher. It also has a matching bowl which I did not find with it. It was made pre-1913, and was sold online a few years ago with the bowl for $90.00. I absolutely love the intricate and delicate details including the handle. This was $6.00 at an estate sale.   

This mini pitcher is one of my absolute favorite farmhouse finds -- I got it at Dollar Tree! Not only does it look like it belongs in my ironstone collection, but it has a darling rooster weather vane on the side of it! And of course it was only a dollar. So there's that. On the right is another thrift store find that I'll be sharing with you in a future Thrill of the Hunt post.

Here are the latest zinnias from the garden in another thrifted vase. This time the “vase” is actually a vintage Red Wing pottery creamer I picked up for $3.00 at an antique mart in southwest Michigan. 

 

You can read all about it (the pattern name, the line it's from, who designed it and when it was produced) in Thrill of the Hunt #74.

Vessel number eight is an absolutely lovely blue and white creamer. It's part of a vintage Bombay Company sugar bowl and creamer set. I picked it up at a vintage shop for $8.00. It's the perfect size for my summer bouquets. And it fits right in with all my other blue and white porcelain pieces.

Now I'll share an obvious vessel you can use as a vase for garden flowers. Or is it? I've used mason jars as vases for years. They come in all sizes and colors (yes, some are even blue!). This one is a basic vintage Ball Mason jar. You can pick them up at thrift shops, flea markets and estate sales, usually pretty cheap unless they're vintage and rare. I have some large, vintage blue ones that I use all the time for fresh flowers. They're literally my go-to for vases in any season. You can read about them in Summer Flower Garden Bouquet.

But my all-time favorite vases would have to be these vintage milk bottles filled with our garden hydrangeas. Cost? They were free! A neighbor was moving and didn't want to have to pack them so she put them out at the end of her driveway to give them away. I couldn't have been happier when I drove by and saw these beauties. Check out just how I used them in Displaying Hydrangeas in Vintage Milk Bottles.

Let's not forget that we can dry some of our garden flowers and enjoy them all throughout the year. Hydrangeas are a prime example of this. I absolutely love decorating my house with dried hydrangeas. Especially in the fall. Something as simple as some pumpkins and dried hydrangeas arranged on a vintage silver cake stand can make a huge statement. Check out Vintage Cake Stand with Pumpkins and Hydrangeas Fall Arrangement to see how I did it.

And lastly, another unique way to display dried garden hydrangeas is to place them strategically inside a thrifted vintage shutter, cascading down like a waterfall! This is one of my favorite fall vignettes. You can buy old, chippy shabby shutters at flea markets, barn sales and thrift stores fairly inexpensively. Be sure to drop by Dried Hydrangea Decor/Fall Decorating to see the metamorphosis of this unique, natural and rustic fall display.

Well, that's it for today, friends!

I hope you've enjoyed reading about