9 Sneaky Ways to Make Faux Flowers Look Real

Want to decorate with plants and flowers without the fuss? Elevate your home décor with these foolproof tips to make your faux flowers look real like they were plucked straight from the garden. Here are 9 easy ways to make faux flowers and foliage look real for any season.

Faux flowers and greenery are an inexpensive way to decorate your home or office. However, not all faux flowers and foliage are the same.

Some look so authentic you have to touch them to know it’s not real. While others look more plastic and fake.

Follow these tips for finding the best artificial greens and flowers for DIY decor ideas and learn how to make fake flowers look real. Bonus: see what NOT to buy at the end of this post.

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What Artificial Flowers Look the Most Realistic?

For starters, when you see “real touch” faux flowers that’s usually a great starting point. The “real touch” series of faux flowers and greens are made to look like you cut them from the landscape.

Next, would be silk flowers, but be careful that they look real and not like they are made of fabric. Look for different color variations and avoid flat colors and imprints.

Is Using Fake Flowers Tacky?

If done well, I say no. But what does that mean? Doing faux flowers well means they look real and authentic as if you just plucked them out of the garden.

If you use fake florals that don’t look real, then I’d say yes, they will look tacky. When done well, they will mix beautifully with your decorating style.

Are Fake Flowers Worth It?

Yes, they are totally worth it when executed well. As a master gardener recommending the use of fake plants and flowers, you might be wondering why is she using faux flowers.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE live plants and flowers in my home and use them as well. However, sometimes you want more of a set-and-forget approach to seasonal decor.

Or maybe there’s dead space high up on a shelf that you don’t want to water but want to decorate with plants. And maybe that space lacks light for live plants to grow. Or maybe you want to decorate a fireplace mantel but it gets too hot from the heat so plants scorch.

And if you have a lot of houseplants like me, you may move them outdoors leaving the inside of your home less green. So having artificial flowers and plants keeps the greenery going when we move those indoor plants outside for summer vacation. In these cases, faux plants and flowers are the way to go.

Faux flowers can get pricey, which is why you want to be very selective about what you purchase. I’ve been collecting fake flowers for years, so my collection is vast.

But the point is, they last forever if you take care of them well. So even if the cost is a bit higher up front, they are still worth it in the long run.

9 Easy Ways to Make Faux Flowers Look Real

Now that we’ve covered why it’s worth using faux flowers when decorating, here are 9 simple ways to make fake flowers look real.

Get Clear on What Real Plants Look Like

Before you can successfully buy fake flowers that look real, you need to have a strong understanding of what real plants look like. It’s the only way to ensure you’re getting realistic faux plants!

Spend some time in the garden or at your local flower shop examining the actual buds and pay attention to what makes each plant special. Pay close attention to the look and texture of their petals and leaves, the color of their stems and greenery, and the colors of the blooms. 

Doing this research upfront will help you choose more realistic faux flowers.

Look for Quality Faux Flowers and Greens

When purchasing faux flowers and foliage for any season, ask yourself this question, “Does this look real and authentic as if I cut it from the landscape?” If the answer is no, put it back on the shelf and walk away because it’s not worth the money, even if it’s on clearance.

Look for different color variations in the flowers and foliage. Matte finishes typically look better than anything overly shiny. As an aside, overly shiny pieces tend to look more plastic, so avoid those.

You also want to find foliage that pulls true green – not blue-green. I can’t tell you how many faux plants I’ve found that not only look like plastic but also have a blue hue to them. Most plants in nature don’t look like that, so don’t buy it just because you found it at Walmart or Target.

Be choosy with what you buy and trust me, they’ll look amazing when you bring them home.

Choose a Unique or Vintage Vessel

With almost all of my faux flowers and plants, I use unique, vintage vessels that I found thrifting.

Thrifting the vessel is a great way to save money on the arrangement because you probably spent some money on the florals.

There are so many different options to choose from that will enhance the look of your fake flowers and foliage. To give you some ideas, here are 9 garden treasures you should never pass up at the thrift store.

When I’m decorating for the seasons, oftentimes, I’ll grab one of these garden treasures that I found thrifting and fill it with pretty faux flowers and foliage. Using a unique or vintage vessel helps take some of the attention off the flowers themselves and adds some interest to your arrangement. Many of these vessels are also opaque, which can help hide plastic stems and leaves.

Mix Faux Flowers and Greens With Real Plants

Once you’ve got your faux flowers and vessel, place them around your home. Even if the arrangement is full-on fake, mixing it in a space with live plants fools the eye.

I can’t tell you how many times my husband has walked into a room and not known the difference between live and faux plants in our home. He often needs to walk up and touch it to determine whether it is artificial.

In addition to mixing faux flowers and greens in your living space, you can also mix fresh flowers with faux within a vessel to bulk up the arrangement. I don’t usually do that, but I’ve seen others do it, and works pretty well.

Trim Faux Flower Stems

When you bring your faux flowers and greens home, trim the ones that are super long or bunched together so you get a more natural look in a vase or other vessel.

Another great way to make faux flowers look real and work in containers of different sizes is to bend the stems instead of cutting them. Faux flowers typically come with wired stems. 

By simply bending the bottom of the stems to fit in a shorter vase, you give yourself the option of straightening them back out later to use in a taller container. This gives you a lot of flexibility with just one set of fake flowers!

Add Some Water

If you decide to go with a clear vase, jug, or bottle, drop a few faux flowers stems in and add some water. The water helps fool the eye into thinking the arrangement is real.

Add Some Dirt

If you’re working with faux potted plants, adding some actual soil or topping it off with moss is one of the best ways to make it look real. Simply sprinkle a small amount of real dirt on top of the faux soil. You can even add a small amount of water to the soil to keep it from looking dry.

Mix Fake Flowers and Greens Together

When I make a dining table centerpiece using faux flowers, I typically mix them with greens and other organic elements to create a natural look.

To keep the fake flowers anchored, I like to use the greens as the base and then tuck in some florals with berry sprigs or another type of organic element for added texture and dimension.

Fluff Up and Bend Faux Flowers and Foliage

Oftentimes when you bring those fake flowers and foliage home they are stiff and bunched up for packaging purposes. After bringing them home fluff them up before using.

And be sure to bend them once arranged in a container to give them a more natural look. Remember, in nature, no stem is perfectly straight. If you want to learn how to make fake flowers look real, this step cannot be overlooked.

Location, Location, Location

One of my favorite ways to make faux flowers look real is by putting them in a realistic location. 

Place your faux plants in similar spots throughout your home where you would put real plants, such as on a windowsill, in a sunny wall hanger or on a front porch. 

Placing faux flowers in realistic spots helps trick the brain into assuming they’re real.

What Faux Flowers and Greens You Should NOT Buy

Now that you’ve learned how to make faux flowers look real, let’s talk about what NOT to do when it comes to artificial plants.

Particularly when you are decorating for a season, think about what flowers and greens you’d find in nature. If it’s not something you’d find in the landscape, don’t buy it because it won’t look authentic.

Avoid flowers that look too blue, because most flowers are not true blue, although some have a bluish hue like caryopoteris, Virginia bluebells, windflowers, globe thistle, and myostotis. Blue flowers pull a little more purple or pink than a true blue.

Also avoid foliage that looks flat, plastic, and like it has an imprint. You can find much better quality greens than something like this.

And finally, if the branch and flower stems look like obvious and plastic, it won’t look real. So avoid purchasing those too. Instead, look for plants with a softer stem look, such as a velvet stem.

Where to Find Quality Artificial Flowers and Greenery

There are a lot of great places to find beautiful faux flowers and greens. Here are some of my favorite retailers.

• Afloral
• Terrain
• Target
• Amazon
• QVC
• Pottery Barn
• Wayfair

But even with the best places to buy, ALWAYS be choosy and don’t be afraid to return if it’s not what you thought when you received it.

How to Store Faux Flowers

One of the best things about learning to make faux flowers look real is that your blooms can last season after season – if you take care of them well. Here are a few tips for making sure your faux flowers last.

• Keep your blooms away from direct sunlight. Being in too-bright sunlight for too long can make your faux flowers fax.
• Store faux flowers carefully when not in use. You can use a tall trash can or even a wrapping paper storage container to stand the flowers up and keep their stems straight. I store mine on tiered wired shelves like these in storage so I can find them later. 
• Be careful not to overly crowd the fake flowers when storing them so that their petals and greenery don’t get bent or flattened.
• Keep faux flowers in a container with a closed lid like a storage bin to keep out dust, dirt and other debris.
• Clean faux flowers by gently wiping them with a microfiber cloth or using a fabric duster. You can also use a hair dryer on a gentle, cool setting to blow off dust and even help fluff the arrangements. I like to do this before I pack my flowers up for the season.

Faux Flower FAQ

How do you make fake flowers look good outside?

I primarily use faux flowers indoors, but you can absolutely use them outdoors, too! Fake flowers are great for porches or yards where you don’t want to regularly maintain them or where you don’t get enough sunlight for a large flower garden. You can also use faux flowers to give your yard some color before and after your garden’s main growing season.

If you’re going to use faux plants outdoors, make sure to use a real outdoor container such as a clay pot or other planter. Add soil to your container to make them look more real or top fake flowers off with moss.

Be careful not to have them in direct sunlight for too long or their colors will fade quickly. But keep in mind, the colors will fade A LOT in one season even if they aren’t in direct sunlight, so you’ll need to replace them and not likely not reuse them again. 

What can you spray on artificial flowers so they don’t fade?

There are a lot of tips out there for what to spray on faux flowers, from hairspray to this next product: the Krylon-Ultra UV Floral Protectant. This spray protects silk and dried flowers from UV light rays and can be used both indoors and outdoors.

Are faux flowers out of style?

Absolutely not! In fact, I’ve seen more and more designers and homeowners using artificial plants in their decor. As the quality of fake plants gets better and more options are available on the market, they’re an easy, low-maintenance way to bring a new look to your home.

How do you arrange faux stems in a vase?

The key to creating faux flower arrangements that look real is by avoiding perfectionism. Nature isn’t perfect! To create a natural-looking arrangement, embrace asymmetry! Bend the stems at different angles and bend or trim the stems to be at different heights. Open and fluff the blooms in different ways to create a more natural shape for your plants. Look at a photograph or other example of the plants in nature while doing this to try to mimic the real look.

More About Making Fake Flowers Look Real

Do you decorate with faux flowers and plants in your home? How do you like to decorate with them in your home? Do you have any tips you’d like to share? Where do you like to purchase your artificial flowers? I would love to know more in the comments below.

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