I love having fresh flowers in my home, but most of us don't have the time or money to stop by a fancy florist every time we're craving color. Don't fret: grocery store flowers can be just as pretty if you know how to arrange them right. Just follow these five easy tips, and people will think your arrangements are the work of an expert.

1. Buy mixed bouquets or several cheap bouquets featuring one flower. Variety will inspire creativity.
2. Choose flowers in contrasting textures and shapes (i.e., soft gerbera daisies, round berries, and spiky lobster claws) and complementary colors.
3. Collect foliage from your yard or street. A flowering vine or broad-leafed weed often ends up looking much prettier than the filler that comes with supermarket bouquets.

For the final two tips, read more.

4. Use a wide-mouth vase, but create an anchor inside it. Often, people think that a small-mouth vase is better because the flowers don't fall all over the place. But a wider opening makes for fuller arrangements. Just coil some extra foliage (see, it comes in handy!) inside the vase, so as to create spaces and slots to anchor the flowers. Then, stick the flowers down around the anchor.
5. Make the tallest flower one-and-a-half times taller than the vase height. Only one or two flowers should be the maximum height, then vary the heights from there.