HOW TO MAKE MONEY FLOWER ARRANGING
I didn’t really know how to do flower arranging until I got married. I wanted to save money on my wedding and when I started looking at the cost of wedding flowers I was sure I could do it cheaper myself.
For my wedding I needed 3 bouquets, flowers for the guest tables, flowers for the top table, button holes and a cake topper. The cost was hundreds of pounds!
Fresh flowers were the most expensive. I didn’t want the stress on the day of waiting for fresh flowers to arrive. To me, it was just another thing to worry about, so I settled on artificial flowers.
I searched for the cheapest ways to do wedding flowers and decided to have a go at making my own, making a huge saving with all of my wedding flowers costing me £70. After the wedding I then sold them in the local paper for £50. This gave me the idea that I could make money flower arranging!
Today I will share with you how you can do the same using artificial flowers. (If you prefer fresh flowers, I recommend this book here).
Doing flower arranging to earn extra money is fairly easy, even if you’ve never done flower arranging before. As long as you start off small, you can make very simple bouquets and flower arrangements with ease.
Where to Buy Supplies
At first, I was buying my flowers on eBay and there is a good range if you are only in need of a small amount of flowers or just want to have a go without investing too much money. However, the most cost effective way is to find a wholesaler.
I used Excelsior Wholesale. Their range is huge and they have a warehouse in the Midlands that you can wander around for hours. They have a minimum order of £75 plus VAT for your first order. Don’t be put off, for that you will get a huge amount of flowers and accessories and could easily double or even treble your investment!
I have always found the staff really helpful, so if you are unsure of what you need, you can call them and they are happy to provide advice.
You can take a look around their website here.
What You Will Need
Here are the very basic materials and tools that I recommend you purchase to get started:
- Silk or Foam Flowers (I used foam flowers as I think they are a little more realistic)
- Wire
- Florist Tape
- Ribbons
- Wire Cutters
- A Glue Gun
How to Do Flower Arranging
I basically taught myself by just playing around with the flowers and wires and looking at photos of bouquets in magazines and on-line.
If you need a little more help, there are many tutorials teaching you how to arrange flowers. Here are just a couple to get your started.
How to Create a Loose Informal Bouquet
For cake toppers, you simply make a much smaller bouquet with short stems to sit on top of the cake. Alternatively, you can buy an oasis to arrange the flowers in and place it in a small tin foil tray. Just make sure you cover the tray with the flower arrangement.
Where to Sell
I used to sell my flowers in local newspapers but that was quite a few years ago. Now, with social media, there are now so many more ways you can sell. If I was starting again now, I would sell in the following places:
- Set Up a Facebook Page
- Sell to Friends and Family
- Post in Facebook Wedding Groups
- List on eBay
- Sell on Amazon
- Run a market stall
- Set up an Etsy Shop
- Advertise for free on Craigslist and in Local Papers
- Set up a Stall at Local Craft Shows/Wedding Shows/Summer Fayres
- Contact local businesses, restaurants, spas and salons and anywhere else you can think of that may require a flower arrangement.
Other Things That May Help You
- Get some business cards here to hand out to people.
- Make sure you have a large table or work space to lay out your flowers.
- Collect some cardboard boxes to keep your bouquets in once they are made.
- Take some good quality photographs of your arrangements for you to share.
- Be patient with yourself and practice a few times, you’ll soon get the hang of it.
- If you are going to be posting them out, think about what packaging you may need. Some large bubble wrap like this is perfect.
Expanding
Once you get some experience with flower arranging, you will be able to buy other supplies to expand your range.
Other arrangements I have made include the following:
- Setting flowers in a glass vase with pebbles and resin.
- Making alice bands for Flower Girls.
- Setting up table arrangements for a local business.
- Arranging funeral flowers.
It is possible to make money flower arranging. It can be a nice extra income or even a full-time income if you want it to be.
Let your imagination and artistic spirit flow and the sky is the limit!
Have you ever had a go at flower arranging? Do you know anyone who may want to save money on their wedding flowers, perhaps you could help them?
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:
How to Earn a Regular Income on eBay
How to Make Money with Matched Betting
Set Up a Market Stall to Make Money
I’m taking part in the Money Making Madness Linky hosted by Charlotte Burns from Lotty Earns, Emma Bradley from Mum’s Savvy Savings, Emma Drew from EmmaDrew.Info and Lynn from Mrs Mummy Penny.
10 comments on “How to Make Money Flower Arranging”
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I did actually try making my own bouquets for our wedding but then we hired a florist so I thought I’d let her do it instead – mine weren’t terrible just not quite nice enough for our big day!
That’s brilliant that you had a go! It does take a bit of practice. After I did my own wedding flowers and sold a few, I was confident enough to do my sister’s wedding flowers and saved her fortune :).
Hi Michelle
I work full time however i very much enjoy doing flower arranging and have done an introduction to floristry course and would now like to start making and selling both real and silk flower arrangements for weddings/Funerals etc but not sure where to start with promoting myself and my flower arrangements im not really au fait with the world of social media and im always a bit wary of it. I was wondering if you could suggest any other ways of getting my flower sales up and running. And also im unsure of how to price them as sadly maths was never my strong point. I look forward in anticipation to your reply kind Regards ondina
Hi Ondina, I used to love my flower arranging! Social media is definitely the best way to go, especially local Facebook selling pages but if you are absolutely sure you don’t want to go down that route, I used to sell my flowers on e-bay (if you look on e-bay, it will also give you an idea of what prices people are charging too). I also used to do local craft fayres and table top sales. The Spring is a really good time and make sure you have some business cards printed to hand out. These kind of events give you the chance to chat to people who are looking at your flowers and very often you can come away with custom orders. There are also wedding fayres but they usually cost a lot more. You could put up advertisements in shop windows, maybe ask in wedding shops if you can leave some business cards, that sort of things. Hope that helps and gives you some good ideas to start with it. Good luck with it :).
Hi Michelle
Many thanks for your reply.
I am looking into possibly setting up a shop on the ETSY website to sell my handmade silk flower bridal bouquets however I am worried about how the tax payments work when you set an online shop up and how to work out the tax . I dont want to get into trouble with the tax people. Do you have any advice. I look forward in anticipation to your reply. Kind Regards
Hi Ondina
It’s really nothing to worry about, just make sure you register your business with the tax office on-line or by calling them and you can also file your tax return on-line too. You can find lots of helpful information here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/help-and-support-for-self-assessment.
Just found your page, I just done my own flowers for my upcoming wedding to save money, and loved every second of it.
Now want to take it further and your page has helped give me beginner step ideas, thank you and well done to you as well.
Hi Tanya, i’m so glad you found my post helpful. Fantastic that you’ve done your own flowers, that’s a great way to start. Make sure you take lots of photos of them. Good luck with it!
Where can I buy very cheap silk flowers and sticks and things like that at like at a whole sale price’s
If you are in the UK, the wholesaler I mention in my post ‘Excelsior’ do sell all of those kinds of things. If you are outside the UK, it maybe worth contacting them to see if they will ship overseas.