Fresh flowers make homes smell lovely and look more elegant. Whether you have the flowers delivered or you pick them up yourself, ensuring you've got some new blossoms brightening up your home really can help you feel a lot better. Of course, if you buy these beautiful flowers, you want them to really shine and be a focal point in the room. To do this, you'll want to display them prominently and with a lot of light — but you'll also need to keep safety in mind.

Use LED Bulbs and Not Incandescents or Halogen

First, wherever you place them, if there is a light nearby, change the bulb so that the light uses an LED bulb. This is because LEDs are relatively cool, while incandescents and halogen bulbs give off a lot of heat. Keeping the flowers out of that heat helps preserve them; excess heat will make them wilt faster. Plus, a very hot bulb placed too close to the flowers is actually a fire risk, especially if, say, airflow from a fan or a vent blows a leaf tip over onto the bulb.

Don't Overshadow the Arrangement

Small vases with small flowers are super cute, but if you have small arrangements, place them somewhere where they aren't overshadowed by other things on the shelf. Part of this is pure design principles; if you have a small vase next to a huge statue, for example, no one is really going to look at those flowers. But it's also a safety issue; if you place a small vase with flowers next to something big, and that big thing falls over, then it can smash the vase and leave broken glass or porcelain all over the place.

Keep Crystal and Glass Vases out of Direct Sunlight

Whatever you do, if you have flowers in a glass or crystal container, including mirrored containers or containers with mirrored bases, keep the whole thing out of direct sunlight. Direct light shining through a crystal vase or off a mirror base is a lot different than hanging a tiny crystal near your window. Instead of giving off rainbows like that tiny crystal, the vase can magnify the sun's rays and actually start a fire.

Ensuring You Don't Make the Vase Fall Over

Place the container with flowers someplace where you won't push it over as you go about your day. If the flowers will be in the kitchen, for example, place them in the center of a table and not near the edge. That's a very simple example, but you get the idea; you want the flowers to remain safe from any movements you make.

Check out your local florist's website to see what arrangements are available, and maybe take a trip there to see which loose-cut flowers they have for custom arrangements. Flowers will change with the seasons, so you may want to keep track of when your favorite flowers will be in stock. For more information, contact a florist near you.