for xmas, i made a fruit bouquet

We were looking at Edible Arrangements the other day, which led to my brilliant idea of making my own fruit bouquet as my Christmas contribution (since I didn't have any presents). It looked easy enough; I could de-construct how it was done from looking at the catalog pictures. I also have experience with floral arrangements, and I'm naturally creative – so how hard can it be? My first one will come out awesome.

Step 1: Get Supplies

It turns out the hardest part was what should have been the easiest – finding cookie cutters. I know I've seen Christmas cookie cutters at Walgreens before; just not this time. And they didn't have any at the grocery store, the 99cents store, or the kitchen section of Mervyn's. The craft store had a few, but plastic and not quite the selection I was hoping for – they did have a flower-shaped one though. Bed, Bath, & Beyond had sturdier ones, but they all came in sets – I got a pack of star-shaped ones.

The right fruit was hard to find too – and expensive. If I do this again, it'll be in the summer. I went to 2 different grocery stores. There were no regular round grapes, just those big ones with seeds. And no box of strawberries had them all in the same size.

But I got everything I thought I needed: cookie cutters, skewer sticks, lettuce (or cabbage, I'm not really sure), pineapple, cantaloupe, strawberries, and grapes.

Step1

Step 2: Slicing and Dicing to Shape

So... I'm really glad I got the pineapple because I had forgotten about the empty seed hole in the cantaloupe; I was thinking I'd slice it up flat and stamp out stars in various sizes to stack on top of each other. Not so easy with the curvature; I could only use the smallest star and most of them came out with missing points. Next time, I'm getting a melon baller and balling melons like the pros do.

After the cantaloupe, I thought the pineapple flowers would be a piece of cake, since that would actually be flat. This was my first time cutting a pineapple (I have no idea what the right way to do it is), and I didn't get each piece sliced the right thickness. That wouldn't have really mattered if I had a better cookie cutter... this left some frayed edges.

The strawberries were easy to shape though! Quick V-cuts to give the appearance of tulips.

Step2

Step 3: Assembly

And it all comes together.
I couldn't figure out how to cut the lettuce into the right shape for the Christmas mug I was using for the base. I kept halving it and halving it, then just trying to pack it in there. At this point, I was thinking I should have just gotten floral foam, and wondering why I thought lettuce would work.

Step3

Step 4: Putting it Together

I started sticking in the sticks and the lettuce worked great! Then I started getting paranoid about it all falling apart because the flower pieces weighed too much, and oh, no, I don't have enough for a bouquet.

Skewer sticks are harder to arrange than flower stems. And if I ruined any of them, that was it; there weren't replacements in the back. This was definitely more challenging than flowers, but I think I did good.

I didn't have filler though. I tried bits of lettuce but that looked weird. Next time, I'll have parsley or some other dark green leafy material.

Step4

Start to finish was about 3 hours, and most of that was the cantaloupe. I am quite happy with the results.

The catalog photos don't tell me how to wrap it up for transport. I assume they do something that looks pretty, but I just threw on saran-wrap, which worked.

When we were walking down the street, a couple was getting out of the car and into a house, but the guy lingered a bit and looked. I bet I could have sold him the bouquet. I think I'll have to do that next year.

Anyway, we got to J's parents' for Christmas dinner, and it was a huge hit with everyone, especially Meredith. She thought we bought it *g*. And everyone ate it and said it was delicious too! I was surprised because I thought the pineapple was still too sour. Maybe I'm just spoiled from when I was living in Hawaii.

This is what was left when we were leaving:

End

I'm happy that everyone liked it. And dinner (& dessert) was awesome, and the tree and presents were gorgeous. Another merry Christmas this year.

Comments

[.tiff]

[this is good] so cool! thanks for documenting this ;)

[flowers to go]

that is such a cool fruit bouquet!

[FernHill]

You did a really nice job, especially for a first time! Thanks for the photos, it helps if I try to make one myself :) I've seen some good instructions at www.ediblecreations.blogspot.com as well.

[Talena]

Thank you for sharing information. It quite useful for us also. I always love to read such type of things. Land

in
Samara Costa
Rica