I got a frantic call from my church mom about two weeks ago, saying she needed help putting together a centerpiece that didn’t cost too much money for her mom’s 70th birthday party. First, I was aghast — did she need it the very next day??? No, she needed it in one week. Still that didn’t give me much to work with.

In most cases, I would have said, “I’m going to go shopping with you!” But I had just returned to work that week from maternity leave, plus I now have two boys to care for, so flitting off to go look for stuff to use in a centerpiece was not an option. I had to direct my church mom on what to look for and hope for the best.

First, I directed her to go to Big Lots and look for vases and items using lights, since its January and those sorts of things will typically be on clearance after the holidays. Her shopping trip just two days before the party was pretty fruitful.

So, before there was flowers, this is what we started with — glass cylinder vases with some clear acrylic pebbles, along with some black ones, and the branches with battery-operated lights in the tips.

My church mom bought white roses, pink and yellow Gerber daisies, baby’s breath and some green filler, all cast offs from a flower shop, for $35. Personally, I wouldn’t have paid so much for these flowers, but she didn’t know. So I made do with what I had.

Forgive me for the slightly fuzzy photos, I was a little flustered because people were arriving and I wanted to get all the leaves and stuff from the flowers cleaned up. Anyway, it turned out OK — in each centerpiece, I put three roses at varying heights, then put two pink and one yellow Gerber daisy at the opening of the vase. Inside the vase, I put a green branch, and some baby’s breath in the opening. All this was arranged around the branch lights, which I spread and arranged. By the way, I am not the flower arranger in my family. Heheh.

Here’s a closeup of another centerpiece.

Thankfully, these were not the only flowers at the party.

My brother put together this arrangement in a bubble vase for the birthday celebrant’s table. I watched him as he put it together and was mighty impressed.

He used several blooming pink roses, green hydrangeas, button chrysanthemums, a little bit of greenery and white cymbidium orchids.

So yes. When you have a last minute party and need to create an instantly nice centerpiece, go to Big Lots first for the basics, but make sure you shell out for the nice flowers.