10 Steps to a Simple Tulip Easter Basket

Martha Stewart and her lackeys are homemaking gods, as we all know. As I look around our apartment right now, there is nothing that even remotely looks like something Martha might have in her sights. I looked this evening for easter decorating ideas, and stopped short at her gilded easter eggs. I'm not up for gilding anything. But, then I saw this Tulip easter basket on their site and I am going bring a little Martha to our home later this week. Here's how you can do it, too:

1. Find basket. We went to a thrift store last weekend and know that there are more baskets there than we could ever use, most for less than a dollar. If you have kids, or have a normal, non-basket-adverse husband like I do, you might even have a suitable basket tucked away in your house. Don't spend all your time searching for the PERFECT basket though. Just start somewhere, and get a basket.
2. Line it with a towel.
3. Put an old handtowel or torn up tshirt in the bottom of your basket.
4. Get a tupperware bowl, bread tin or some other shallowish container that fits into your basket. It doesn't have to fit perfectly, it just needs be of the same general shape and slightly smaller size.
5. Get out your trusty duct tape and make a grid across your bowl, with the spaces of the grid about three - four inches apart. This is to help support the flowers. I think ripping the strips in halfs or quarters is a good idea so they won't be noticed.
6. Go to Kroger, your florist or ALDI and buy some KALE, and some flowers. We bought fresh tulips at Whole Foods last week for just $8, so I KNOW Kroger has to have them for $6 or less! The kale, maybe a dollar! If you want it to look more like the picture, get wheat grass.
7. Line the area UNDER the bowl or tin with the kale (or wheat grass).
8. Cut your tulips (or whatever flower you found and loved) about two inches from the flower, and drop them into the bowl or tin (by now, you've read my mind and can see where this is going, and you figured out that you should put some water in the bowl. Good job).
9. Keep dropping the flowers in until you have filled the grid.
10. Stand back and look at your beautiful, simple basket! If you want to use it as a centerpiece, take a hint from the picture and fill a few bowls and glasses with some pretty jelly beans or M&M's!

PS. I just realized that #2, and #3 are the same - line the basket with a towel. This Make Something is even simpler than I thought!