Why I Oughta...

'Tis the season for winter, evergreen mixed arrangements around here.  I've made a couple of 'big' ones that ended up at each of our folks houses and some that ended up at neighbor's houses.  A few day ago, I posted a pair that went to my sister's houses .  And, back close to Thanksgiving, I posted a photo of the first one that I put together for our own kitchen counter .   A couple weeks later, that initial one needed a refresh, so I pulled it apart.  And, Nat found this little vintage planter with a wreath on the front that I filled with some floral foam and stuck various evergreen branches to make this arrangement you see below: This has Thuja, pine, fir, boxwood, Alder and painted Birch branches.  

I put together a pair of evergreen arrangements for my Sisters that include a bunch of foraged materials - including Thuja, Spruce, Boxwood and Yew clippings as well as a little bit of euclalptus and some branches from both Magnolia and Alder trees.  The vases are, of course, thrifted.

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 yea...

On my winter evergreen arrangement-making journey this year, I also added a new side-project:  bleaching pinecones.  I've shown a few of my arrangements - including the original and some V2's and all of them featured a number of foraged pinecones.  Some of them were on the tips of the pine branches and others were tucked in with a piece of wire.   When we were last up in Wisconsin, I picked up a few pinecones that were on the driveway.  They were dropped by the upright pine trees.  Here's what they look like pre-bleaching: One-way-or-the-other, I came across the idea of bleaching pinecones as a winter project.  There are dozens of how-to articles like this one that show you the very simple process:  find acorns, put them in a bowl that contains a water and bleach mixture, and weigh them down so they don't float.   That's what I did:  I tucked two into a bleach and water bath overnight.  15-or-so hours later, I pulled th...

A few days ago, I shared a photo of what I'm calling V2 of my Winter Arrangements for 2023 .  The first one - where I learned a bit - was in the Santa planter .  V2 is a series of four in various vases from GoodWill that I picked up over the weekend.   Below is a photo the second of the four in the V2 Series that we gave to my Sister (Equation Boy/Man's wife).  This one (as the title of the post suggests) is a bit more wild (I'm not sure that's the right word, but it is the one I'm using...for now) and has no color in it aside from green.  Just like the others, this one is foraged but for the eucalyptus.  Has a couple of large pine branches that have some cones on them and a big bolt of juniper that is covered in berries.  This one lacks the crabapple branch(s) and has more eucalyptus and curly will branches.  This vase is a bit shorter and has a wider mouth, so the arrangement is wider with the branches splaying out the sides.  There ar...