It’s that time of year when you’ve started to think about Christmas or Holiday decorations and themes. I love to work with my mom on our spring/summer and winter urns or container planters each and every year. This year we had fun attending the Garden Club of London annual Christmas Boutique. At it you can find ready made seasonal urns, boughs, wreaths, flower arrangements, Christmas cards and even preserves. This event takes place every year and you can see that the talent is deep. One of my dearest friends has been a member for years and I knew that there would be lovely things to purchase.
I took a few pictures for you to see some of their handiwork. There were a lot of different organic and natural elements. Colours were both subtle and clearly man-made. Layering was the number one lessons that I took away from the beautiful urns. There were probably 50 for people to buy and they were all gone within the first 90 minutes.
All of the pictures and creations above are from the Garden Club of London Holiday Boutique
My mom is very talented at acquiring the right amount of cedars, pine and sundry greenery for our holiday urns. There is no question that I would be attending with my mother because we wanted to be inspired to use a bit more colour in our arrangements. This year, I wanted to change the colour scheme to bright ‘neon lime’ green, hot pink and silver. The jump off item was floral mesh ribbon that I had bought a few years back at Hobby Lobby in Port Huron, MI. It was pretty unique back then but now you can easily find this in Michael’s (the craft store) or any florist. I have assembled possible ideas for you at the end of this blog post for your consideration.
Holiday Urns: Welcoming Door Decorations
Here is what we came up with this year:
My mother had created huge double bows. One smaller one is the hot pick, silver & lime green striped ribbon and then the larger, lime green bow. Both of these were put together with hot pink coloured duct tape and floral wire. Because the urns themselves are short and large, the bows need to be large or they just get lost in the arrangements.
The Wreath was one that I’ve had for years hanging over the fireplace mantle in my family room but I had grown tired of. I wanted something that was large and that I could covered with the colourful mesh ribbon. I simply wrapped it in mesh ribbon and had my mom create three pouf flowers at the bottom which I wired onto the wreath with floral wire. Its best to buy green coloured floral wire so that it can blend in seamlessly into the arrangements. You can purchase this at a craft, dollar store or on-line (see links below).
If you can see, there are tiny glass balls that are white and sit behind the ribbon. I love that special touch added to the wreath and I know when you are up close they will be more apparent. It’s a little surprise when you reach the door. I also like that the mesh ribbon is protecting them from the elements. I have to admit, since we have no portico or overhead cover protecting the door, the wreath gets the wind, rain and snow full force and that can be hard on them.
At the Garden Club of London boutique we bought two premade decorative arrangements to add to our urns. One had a hot pink theme with three foam balls on stems, three tall stalks, some silver pine cones and some other thistle stalks.
The second bundle has two very large pine cones with glitter tips, a few birch bark decorations and two birch branches. I took just a few of the items that I wanted from this one to balance out the ‘glitz’ look with some organic (though embellished elements).
In order to make these urns pop out, you need to create a layered look. So as you can see there are different types of greenery, pine cones, stems and picks. Having different elements at different heights also makes the urn interesting.
I fell in LOVE with these Osage oranges. They are a bright lime green and extremely textured. They are also heavy so placing them on a dowel or a stem may be harder to do. I nestled them in the urn close together to for greater effect and between the colourful pink cones and the large mesh bow. These were the most reasonable purchase of the morning at two for a dollar! A bargain if you ask me…
You can see that these very tall stalks added height to the urns. Like I said, they are short and wide so it made it interesting along side the birch branch. Whenever I put together an urn, I want them to be interesting and welcoming. I want you to approach our home and know that you can ring the doorbell or knock on the door and come in for a cup of tea. Do you think I succeeded?
The following slideshow has affiliate links for products that you may want to consider for this project.
Amazon.ca Widgets
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