Rainbow roses are expensive. If you go through a flower shop, you’re looking at $60 to $70 for a bouquet of multi-colored flowers. Unless you really want to impress somebody with your money, you can get the same results at home for far less money. After all, rainbow roses are easy (and fun) to make.

So, how does one go about making their rose fabulous? First off, you’re going to want to buy some white roses. Starting with a blank palette will yield the best results. From there, you’re going to want to shorten the stem so that it fits properly in the glass you’ll be coloring the flower in and the vase that it will be stored in later.

With that out of the way, it’s time to actually color the roses. You’ll first want to pick the four colors that you want the rose to take on and fill four glasses with colored water. After that, you will want to cut the stem vertically into four separate sections. Placing these four sections in separate glasses will allow each steam to absorb a different color and then transmit those four colors to the flower itself.

At this point, it’s important to note that you don’t have to separate the stem into four sections. You can separate them it into any number of sections. I recommend going with four as it gives you a wide range of colors without weakening the stem too much. You could separate the stem into more sections, but you risk the stem breaking in half.

After placing the sections in the glasses, you’ll want to leave the rose in the glasses for a few days. You’ll start to slowly notice the white rose is absorbing the colors that you placed the stem sections in. Now you have a pretty rose that you can store for Mother’s Day or any other occasion that calls for multi-colored flowers.

If you need any more help, you can either consult this WikiHow guide or the below video tutorial. As you can see, it’s far cheaper than spending $70 at the florist and, dare I say, just a bit more fun. Heck, you can even turn it into a project with your kids to teach them how plants absorb water as the trick can be used with just about any white flower.

Image via Wikimedia Commons