Holiday Greenery

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Mom and I made use of our country setting and ran around the farm and dirt roads acquiring various bits of greenery for our holiday decorating. We gathered pine cones, pine cones on pine branches with pine needles, dried red sumac, strange hot pink berries, thorny berries (those hurt when I cut them) and cedar branches.

Mom wanted to decorate her front porch with her old sled and bench. We used the greenery we found along with an oversized ornament (two for $1.99 on sale at Shay's in West Plains) and a couple little ones. We also used some of her existing outdoor decor (birds on the branch and wall vase) for some extra umph.

So with a little imagination, some gloves and time, we were able to transform her porch into a winter wonderland. Oh. And some canned snow.

More pics to come!

Holiday Candle Arrangment

Mom and I went to a bunch of holiday open houses the first day of deer season. Apparently around here, it's the thing to do!

We saw a TON of great ideas. Us being us, we took some pictures of our favorites and decided to make some of them.

Today's project for Mom was the candle arrangement we saw at one of the floral shops. I'm not sure how much it cost in the store, but considering that it can be used year after year, it's final price to DIY is much cheaper! And so easy!



Supplies:
box or tray
candles in various sizes
candlesticks
greenery

Mom didn't have a tray on hand and around here, without any kind of Hobby Lobby or Michael's, when you do find a tray for sale the price is somewhat outrageous. We found a shiny green box for $2.99 at Alco. The actual box was too deep but the lid was perfect. We chose green to offset the color of the red candles. You can buy an unfinished wood tray from a craft store and paint or decoupage it.

Some of you may even have Holiday trays around with Santas or what not on them! Use those!

Mom hit both Dollar Tree (everything is $1!) and Walmart for her candles. All in all, she spent no more than $2 for each of them, even the bigger ones! She used candle holders she already had for the tapered candles. She arranged these on the tray to her liking.

Next, we took advantage at our setting in the country and took a drive around the farm and along the back roads. We found a good collection of dried, yet still red, sumac and pine sprigs we snipped straight from the trees. Mom then took some fun sprigs and sumac and arranged them around the candles on the tray.

Finally, for additional color and bling, she added some of the glittered pine cones I had decorated earlier in the evening.

We think the final look is much more exciting than the version in the store!