How to make a Creative Flower Vase using Sliced Citrus

This easy tutorial will show you how to make a beautiful flower vase using lemons or grapefruit. It’s a great way to add some color to a clear vase.

With January comes a wealth of lemons from the tree. I enjoy using my creativity to come up with new uses for the fruit. Citrus is a wonderful addition to your floral arrangements in the winter season. Grab a few lemons or grapefruits from the tree ( or the grocery store) and let’s get started. This is a super easy way to elevate your flower vase.

Supplies to create your citrus slice vase

• Two clear vases, one that fits inside of the other with about 1/4″ space in between
• Lemons, grapefruit, or the citrus of your choice
• Fresh flowers and greenery
• Water

I have a friend who has a very large Pink Ball Tree, if you have never seen one, they are amazing and have these unbelievable-looking flowers that hang upside down. They look very much like a hydrangea bloom.

I thought it would be fun to make an arrangement using these flowers, however, it was not the easiest. Since they want to hang upside down, it was a challenge to get the stems into the vase, but I did it. For this arrangement, I used lemon slices in the vase and an assortment of greenery from Trader Joe’s.

I also made a second arrangement using grapefruit slices with some fresh roses.

Directions to make a citrus flower vase

1. You want to purchase two round clear glass vases. One needs to fit inside of the other with approximately a 1/4″- 1/2″ gap all the way around. I prefer to use round for this project so you do not have corners to deal with.

Adding your citrus slices to your flower vase

• I chose to use lemons and grapefruits, however, you could use limes, or oranges as well.
• Slice your fruit so the slices are approximately 1/4″ thick.
• Use a serrated knife to accomplish this as the slicer was not working well and I felt I had more control over the larger fruit with a knife.
• Since the grapefruit slices were so large, It was better to cut them in half. When I tried to use the whole slice, it kept getting stuck and bending.

Add water to your flower vase

Add water to cover all of the citruses in between the vases as well as fill the inner vase.

You are now ready to arrange your flowers.

Arranging your fresh flowers

• For the first arrangement with the lemons, I put the pink ball flowers in first, as I wanted them to hang around the edge like they naturally hang ( I also used a very tall vase to allow for this arrangement ).
• Then I added some greenery, lemon leaves, eucalyptus, and some pine.
• Lastly, I added in the roses and the Alstroemeria ( they are the white and pink flowers from Trader Joe’s).

Simple Roses and Eucalyptus

The grapefruit was so pretty and I did not want to take away from the vase, so I chose simple blush pink roses in two sizes with two types of eucalyptus for this arrangement.

Start with your greenery and create a base. The image on the left is the seeded Eucalyptus and then I added the silver dollar eucalyptus in the image on the right.

Next, you want to add your largest flowers first. I peeled back a few of the petals on the large roses and blew on the center to make them look more open. It’s amazing what a little hot air will do.

I hope you enjoyed this easy way to create a unique and pretty flower vase using sliced citrus fruit for springtime. Follow my blog for more inspiration, tips, tutorials, and home decor ideas. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Thank you for reading!

Additional floral/garden posts you will enjoy

The basics of flower arranging

Are Dahlia’s a Perennial?

Easy ways to age terra cotta pots

Everything you need to know about growing hydrangeas