If you've ever found yourself on the receiving end of several deliveries of, say 30th birthday flower bouquets, first of all, lucky you. Second, that means you know that feeling of looking around at new collection of perfectly serviceable vases that you nevertheless don't need and would never have purchased for yourself. And there they go, off to the dark recesses of your hardest-to-reach
kitchen cabinets—or to the Salvation Army, if storage space is really at a premium. Still, you don't have to purge your whole vase aggregation (or toss out your stemware collection to make room for it). Instead, why not save one or two of the florist-issue models and dress them up with what I like to call, "outfits", and then round out the bunch with a couple of vases that collapse to roughly the size of a dinner
napkin when not in use. Both strategies will give you lots more ways to display spring's newest arrivals, and neither will encroach on your precious cabinet square footage.
First up, at left, is a build-it-yourself kit from
5.5 designers. It consists of precut birch pieces that can be assembled into three different shapes around several sizes of vase. It's available for 45 Euros on
Domestic.fr. (There is, however, a rather hefty delivery fee to the U.S., so this might be only for the hardcore.) [
via Home Canary]
Tord Boontje's Thinking of You metal covers aren't quite the new kids on the design block, but they do offer a shinier, more feminine way to turn ordinary glass jars into beautiful vases, for $44.
If you're feeling a little more hands-on,
Lowe's has step-by-step photos (and even
an instructional video) for making a d.i.y. vase cover using wooden dowels and twine. It's very
spa.
Plastic-bag vases from
Sprout Home are the flattest of them all: they take up no space at all until filled with water, and come in a variety of patterns and colors. Two for $25. (Bonus: they'll also never shatter if knocked off a shelf.)
Related links on Shine:
An easy, d.i.y. flower arranging idea
A vase made entirely of recycled newspapersVideo: Container gardening made easy
