The decorations, for real this time

A couple weeks ago, I showed you the decorations that Linda had just finished, essentially about the same time it started to snow. And snow and snow and snow. It's taken till then for enough of it to melt that I could get out and capture some photos of the decorations without the heavy snow blanket. As an aside, it's supposed to snow again tonight, so they may disappear for another couple weeks.

This is all Linda talking the details. I know nothing of this.

1. An arrangement done today using the leftover boughs.

2. The first indoor arrangement. This adds that genuine fresh tree scent to the air. Linda uses floral foam in an inexpensive plastic container with handy handles from the dollar store. The pine cones, floral accents in red are also from the dollar store. 

3. The 'green' version. Linda saves the fibre pots from the spring plant purchases, fills the empty pot with reconstituted coir fibre - brand name 'Beats Peat' for those who want to know & places the arrangement in a hole dug out before the ground freezes in our large outdoor containers. Many of the elements used to embellish the arrangement are in their second or even third year of use. That includes the artificial sprays, the sugar pine cones, the glittered twigs etc. 

4. The grapevine ball was a purchase from Michael's last year. This is the second season of use & since the grapevine is woven over wire will likely last several years. The pine cones & sprays are thrust through the ball to anchor it so the arrangement doesn't fly away in high winds. An inexpensive dollar store glittered 'Joy' ornament is clipped to the ball using one of the clips that came off some of the inexpensive dollar store artificial flower clips. Curly willow twigs are now in their 5th year of use. 

5. One trick to secure the twigs in the coir fibre is to re-use the elastic bands that hold the fresh boughs together. Wrap them around the base of the bundle of twigs & then jam that bundle deep into the coir fibre. Once the wet coir fibre freezes up the twigs stay upright even during a strong Chinook.

6. One of two arrangements in front of our garage. The coir fibre retains considerable moisture but does dry out. Fortunately it is easy to pour fresh water on the arrangement during warmer weather & that helps keep the boughs looking fresh for as long as possible.

7. The matching arrangement in front of our garage. Note how the tips of the fresh boughs are looking a little brown. Floral foam isn't environmentally friendly but it does have superior performance when it comes to keeping things looking fresh. Note how green the boughs look in the ninth photo. The container is narrow so a block of floral foam anchors the arrangement. Those boughs will hold their colour right through to spring, whereas the coir fibre arrangements will be looking brown by the New Year.

8. This pot is beside the front entryway area adjacent to the garage. 

9. Arrangements wrap the entire perimeter of the house. This is between our house & the next door neighbours. The door accesses our garage from the side, but we never use it. The door is locked & the roof overhang tends to keep the arrangement snow free.

10. Linda normally fills all the containers in between the two houses but ran out of time, so decided to double up the bling by repurposing a hanging basket container. Again, the red star & artificial sprays are several years old. 

11. Arrangements in the pots lining the steps from our back door. Although the underlying filler is coir, these boughs will retain their green colour much longer than the ones in the front of the house because the area doesn't get much sunlight during winter. So the coir remains frozen even during prolonged Chinooks.

12. You may be wondering how many arrangements were created. In total 21 arrangements. Linda used 45 bundles of boughs, 2 packages of Beats Peat & 14 blocks of wet floral foam to create the display. It took her between 12 to 15 hours spaced out over several days. 

13. Each window box of the Nordic lodge in our back yard hold two metal containers from Ikea so 4 containers altogether. Each container holds two wet floral foam blocks which permits a festive evergreen arrangement to add colour to the back garden all through the winter months. The lodge has an overhang which keeps the snow from hiding the display.

14. Again, many of the artificial sprays are from previous years; the red floral clip on flowers were purchased during Boxing week sales so were on sale for 50% or more off the original retail price.

15. Side yard facing the street into the cul-de-sac behind our house. Note how high the snow is. It falls off our metal roof but the pot is under the overhand so the arrangement escapes damage from the avalanche of snow.

16. The mound of fallen roof snow nearly conceals this pot, which is about 30 inches high.

17. A small arrangement on our front door entry area. The roof covers the landing so snow isn't an issue. Linda often tucks the plastic container into a wicker sleigh to conceal the plastic but chose to leave it exposed this time. The reindeer in front of the small wood wheelbarrow are yet another dollar store find. Linda painted the bare wood with tempura gold glitter paint from the dollar store. The small red stars on the reindeer necks were from the dollar store. Linda painted them with red tempura paint that she mixed with glitter glue, threaded through some thin red ribbon she saved from a present & tied in a festive thin bow around each reindeer neck. The photo doesn't show them, but there are Christmas themed stickers embellishing the reindeer sides.

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Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did