They smell divine, brighten any room and express a whole range of silent emotions from "I’m sorry" to "Feel better soon". While store-bought bunches are the easiest way to inject a happy vibe into your room, it’s also easy to make original arrangements yourself — think of it as an art form. Here are a few pretty ideas.

Jars and ribbons

Let the prettiest flowers shine on their own by popping them in a plain old recycled jar. We chose velvety pink roses and the odd yellow sunflower for this display. Alone in the jars they looked pretty, but ribbons in complementing colours tied around the jars really made the flowers pop. Stems at different lengths and a judicious smattering of green leaves also adds interest.

If you’re having a dinner party, try a cluster of jars as a table display. Or, as an everyday decoration, place them along a windowsill or spread them out around your house — even one on its own creates a striking feature.

Vessels and hues

Anything goes when placing flowers in clear vases, but for best effect when using coloured vases, keep a common colour theme. This sea of clear and blue vases and bottles looks wonderfully fresh paired with the sunny yellow of the sunflowers and red-hot pokers.

Use different-sized vases, and cut your blooms at various heights so they don’t appear perfectly neat — "careful carelessness" is the look you’re after. Keep leaves above the top of the vase and a maximum of five per flower.

The beauty of single blooms? You can spread the joy. Line them up on a windowsill or randomly cluster them on a table or shelf. Again, no need to use only the same-sized vases — different heights are also visually pleasing.

The rules of colour decoration also apply to flower arranging. So by all means go crazy with different-coloured vases, but keep the flowers you use pure white; or use varying shades of the same colour in the vase and flower.