"When hinges creak in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through halls. Whenever candlelights flicker where the air is deathly still -- that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight!"
These are the terrifying words that hit your ears when you first step into the most fabulous spooky house there is: Disneyland's Haunted Mansion! We are huge Disney fans and are so happy to be collaborating with A Dream is a Wish Your Blog Makes to bring you this fun, Haunted Mansion themed arrangement just in time for Valentine's Day. If red roses and baby's breath aren't really your thing, take some inspiration from the Victorian decor of the Haunted Mansion and give your sweetheart something that is a touch macabre.
Read on to see how you can bring the magic of Disney into your everyday life by using flowers you can pick-up at your local grocery store, a few items you can get at your local craft store, and some imagination to build your own Haunted Mansion inspired piece for Valentine's Day.
The first step is to find the perfect vase. We chose purple, black and green as the color scheme for this arrangement based on the uniform colors of the Disneyland cast members who you interact with inside the Mansion. You can purchase a matte black cube vase like this on Amazon or at your local craft store. To prepare your vase for your arrangement, we suggest using chicken wire. If you have some laying around the house great, if not you can purchase it at your local hardware store.
Below is the method for filling your vase with chicken wire which will allow you build that perfect arrangement.
The chicken wire allows you to position your stems so they don't fall over in your vase and make it easier for even a novice floral artist to build beautiful designs. Once you have the chicken wire in place, fill your vase with water and floral food. You can buy packets of floral food on Amazon and keep them on hand as you need, or if you buy flowers from your grocery store they often come with floral food packets. Don't skip this step! Floral food will keep your arrangement fresh and long lasting. Once your vase is filled with water, it's time to design.
The flowers we used for this arrangement can be found at your local grocery store, Costco, or Farmer's Market. We used roses (this variety is called Cool Water), standard carnations, mini button poms, black mini calla lilies, leather fern, lemon leaf (or salal), and gunni eucalyptus. We also added some black and purple feathers, inspired by the ornate decor of the Haunted Mansion's interior. You can order feathers for floral arrangements on Amazon or get them from your local craft store. Just make sure they have a "stem" so you can add them amongst the flowers and remember, they don't need to touch water!
Remember that floristry is an art and no two arrangements will look exactly the same: have FUN with your flowers! Experiment with different stem lengths and placements until you have something you love. You don't have to use the exact same colors that we did, or the same placement and it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.
Have a hauntingly beautiful Valentine's Day and stay tuned for more Disney Collaborations with A Dream is a Wish Your Blog Makes!