I want you to change your view of a vase from that thing I use to hold flowers I rarely receive to beautiful decor that happens to also have a function if needed. If you own a beautiful or ugly vase, 99% of the time it’s empty. I believe you should be able to use your vase even if it’s not holding anything.
Most people do not have enough vases and they don’t realize this until they start to welcome the seasons by grabbing a few stems of tulips at the grocery store, start cutting branches from their yard, or receive a bouquet of flowers.
Instead of pulling the perfect vase from the three or four vases (or more if you’re me) with the correct mouth opening, scale and weight, they grab that one wedge style clear glass vase they have under the sink from that time their husband sent flowers. Then they push the bouquet or branches down in it, it doesn’t look great and they believe the lie that only other people can make flowers and cut branches look good.
The problem is they don’t have the right vases.
We all need different types of vases and here’s the key: you need to find vases that you’ll love displaying even when they are empty. I don’t want to just enjoy my beautiful vases when they are holding flowers, I want to see them and love them all the time. This means most of the time I like using opaque vases instead of clear, because they have presence even when they are empty.
Not only do you want a few types of vases to choose from, you must have a few vases with different types of openings.
The image at the top of this post shows three different vases. The pink terracotta vase is from Kirklands, and then a small and medium sized vase, both from the At Home Store ($17.99 and $12.99). Sadly, At Home doesn’t sell online so I can’t link.
But the point is to show you how I use these different vases: see how the smaller vase has close to a three inch opening? It’s not great for a bouquet of flowers because the opening is too small and will look like it’s strangling the flowers. It’s also too BIG for a single heavy stem of apple blossoms because it will lean over to one side of the vase and be top heavy.
But it’s PERFECT for holding 3-4 of the upright stems of my currently blooming Vibrunum.
This stout rounded terracotta colored vase is perfect for the four foot long and lanky apple blossom branch I cut this morning. Filled with water, the vase is super heavy and grounded and can solidly balance the naturally unbalanced shape of the branch. Plus, the small, two inch opening is perfect for holding one single branch.
Look how amazing the water looks after I filled it.
UPDATE: after I took this photo and wrote this post yesterday, I left the house and when I came back, this vase had leaked. Sadly, it’s not water tight. I could tape a ziplock baggie of water around the end of my branch, only use pretend branches, or just use this vase for display without branches. Luckily, this particular vase comes in different colors and I saw the black version in person and it looks likes it’s sealed and won’t leak.
Lucky for me, I was planning on using this vase empty 99% of the time anyway, so it’s only lost 1% of its value to me.
- Brass Bud Vase
- Flower Frog (helps your branches & flowers stand up)
- Ceramic Vase
- Tiny Marble Vase
- Rattan Vase with Handles
- Wonky Vase
- Metal Terracotta Vase
- Rayla Marble Vase (taller one)
- Grey & White Vintage Style Vase
- Dark Grey Terracotta Vase
- Wicker Urn
- Handmade Terracotta Vase
