I wanted to make my mother something special for Valentine’s Day to show my appreciation. Fruit bouquets are a fresh new idea, but I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money that I don’t have on a service, so I decided to research how to make one myself.

First, I looked up how to make the whole arrangement from start to finish. You can find tons of videos on youtube.

In a basic setup, you choose a pot/vase large enough to hold the bouquet base (which is a head of iceburg lettuce cut down to fit the shape of the vase). The head of lettuce is flexible, yet sturdy and it was only 99 cents. Since my vase was see-through, I lined the inside with holiday tissues that I already owned. Be sure to line the inside of the tissue with aluminum foil if you choose to do this. This will keep the tissue paper from getting ruined from the water in the lettuce.

Look up different variations of flower designs you can make with fruit. Some items you will need:

• Vase/pot
• Head of lettuce
• Long wooden skewers (not too thin, but not too thick)
• Flower-shaped cookie cutters (pineapples are the perfect size to fit the whole cutter)
• Various fruits (make sure colors look nice together)
• Melted chocolate and sprinkles (if you choose to do this step)

The overall price of my bouquet was $20, but I had enough fruit, skewers and chocolate left over to make a second bouquet. To save money, I used a vase I already owned (I luckily had a pink one!). Do an inventory of what you already have and see if you can save money by not buying anything but the fruit. It’s even better if you grow your own fruit because then you can wait for it to ripen. A lot of my strawberries weren’t ripe enough and couldn’t be used. Gotta love mass production…