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Bringing the Outdoors In By Melissa J Wantuck  |
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 Welcome Spring into your home as you open the windows by bringing fresh flowers and bits of nature inside to enliven your rooms with freshness and new life.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Flowering Stems
Find fallen branches in your yard. Buy silk flowers of blooms like flowering crab apple trees, cut the blooms from their stems and using a hot glue gun, attach them to the branches you found in your yard. Arrange them in a tall vase or urn, or hang them along the top of a curtain rod to enhance your window treatments.
Pussy Willow Branches
Cut long stems from pussy willow shrubs just as their white feathery buds have emerged. They will stay preserved on your branches once they’re cut and provide a catchy show in your home. Place them among a silk flower arrangement, use a bunch of them on their own in a tall container, or hang them along a curtain rod as a window treatment.
Lily-of-the-Valley Teatime
Fill an old tea cup with Lily-of-the-Valley flowers and leaves. Use the leaves as filler and let the dainty bell-like flowers droop over the edges of the cup.
A Spot of Lilacs
Fill an old teapot with fresh cut lilacs. Use it as a centerpiece on your table or next to a plate full of scones when you host an afternoon tea.
Violet a la Mode
Find the tiny purple violets scattered around springtime lawns and place a bunch of then in an old footed glass dessert dish.
Fresh wreath of Forsythia
Cut three to four longs sprays of Forsythia and twist around into a wreath. Secure the sprays together with paddle wire. Hang on your front door with a ribbon or over a wreath hook.
Basket of Grass
Using a medium-sized basket of your choice, line it with plastic; fill with potting soil and plant grass seeds. Line the top edge of the basket with Spanish moss to hide the plastic. After the grass has grown, place small objects like eggs or pebbles amongst the grass or tulips and daffodils for a spring garden on your table.
Flickering Seascape
Place seashells in the bottom of a wide glass bowl, cover with about 2 inches of water and place white floating candles on top. Use this as a table centerpiece, place on a side table during an evening get together, or outside on a warm spring evening during an early season barbeque.
A Pot of Blooms
Place pastel colored glass pebbles or sea glass in the bottom of a large footed glass vase or hurricane and fill with fresh spring flowers like daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, lilacs and peonies, to name a few.
Flower Tin
Look for a Tea tin of your choice, either antique or a new one like Harney & Sons Fine Teas (available at Barnes & Noble stores). Fill the tin with fresh cut spring flowers. Use two or more and line them on a window sill, in the middle of your table, or along a buffet table.
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