My Tiny PlotDigging out the Christmas Stuff
It’s December 2nd and time to start thinking about Christmas decoration – although we probably won’t get a tree until the week after next. My box of treasured ornaments came down from the loft (including the new addition of a glass version of the Empire State Building – my personal favourite this year). The fairy lights were tested. Two sets worked, two didn’t – not bad considering.
This year we are thinking about making some traditional Christmas decoration with cuttings from the garden – we have a Yew tree and a Laurel. We’re also lucky enough to live in the country so we went on a pre-foraging recce this afternoon to see what we could find. There’s tons of stuff we can use! We found some Ivy, some Holly that even had some red berries on it, some weird looking white berries that looked like snow inside, some really red Rose hips and even some pine cones. Brilliant. So the plan is to wait until our visitors arrive and have a ‘decorate the house’ afternoon. Which might include some of these little natty ideas I found:
Although I have to admit that it will be a miracle if we do actually make a Mantel Village.
re: the snowberries. you may want to give them a miss, if they look like these: http://www.heavypetal.ca/archives/images/snowberry.0.jpg. This is because 1) when they’re brought into the warmth of the house they rapidly shrivel up and sort of drop off and look quite pathetic. you’ll have about a day or so before this happens, sadly. Its a shame because they look so fantastic otherwise in a decoration. 2) i think they’re also poisonous to humans. i don’t suppose you’re planning to eat them so that’s not really a consideration but i thought i’d mention it.
the rest of it sounds good though!!
keth
xx
We went to Nostell Priory in Yorkshire at the weekend and found Yorkshire Wildlife Trust holding a FREE Christmas wreath workshop in the orangery using all kinds of goodies gathered from the grounds. I managed a natty willow, ivy, holly, yew (used to ward off evil spirits)and pinecone number that’s now decorating the front door. I’ve always thought these were hard to do, but they were childishly simple. My 10 year-old niece managed a lovely willow, conifer and holly one and got photographed by the local press for her efforts!