First Winter (Evergreen) Arrangement for 2024 - November 2024

Last year, I made my first few Winter arrangements featuring a mix of foraged materials and some store-bought highlights.  Last year, I leaned heavily on evergreens and ecualyptus with the only pops of color coming from either red Dogwood branches or crabapples that I foraged from parking lot trees.

Here's the first one I made last year in a vintage Santa ceramic pot.  And, here's what I called V2 - that was more upright and I put together in a Goodwill thrifted vase.  I used some foraged curly Willow branches to give that one A LOT of height.   I also bleached pinecones for the first time and I liked how those turned out - the sort-of 'stood out' or had more contrast against the green needles.  And, I even started to give them away - here's one I gave to my sister.  

With all of the dahlia arrangements that I worked on this Summer, I felt emboldened to go a little bit further with my 2024 Winter (evergreen) arrangements.   Last year, I didn't include any flowers - just evergreen bits and other twigs/branches that I foraged and some cut greens from Trader Joe's.  This year, I wanted to try to mix that same look from last year, but with a couple of cut flowers inserted in the mix.

My first arrangement for 2024 is below.  It is also my LARGEST.  I went with one of the kids to Goodwill to pick out vases and we picked out a couple of big ones.  Or...at least bigger than what I've bought in the past.  

This arrangement includes Spruce, Thuja, Fir needles.  A couple types of eucalyptus, some strange cut green, a Magnolia leaf, a couple branches of Winterberries, a couple painted birch branches (gold and white) and three big, white Peonies.    The peonies were a nice surprise in the buckets at Trader Joe's and came as a group of six blooms.  I used three here and three in an arrangement for our own counter. 

This one is at my Mom's house and she has a BIG room with a big space, so that's why this one is SOOO big.