Bud Vases

They are perfect for mini floral arrangements for a small space or dining table. I find them most useful when downsizing a declining larger arrangement, like this one from 11 days ago.


Once a few of the flowers started to fade, I quickly disassembled my large arrangement and moved it to the dining table in these cute little bud vases that I got for Christmas. I recently saw some just like them at Cost Plus World Market and I have seen them online at Crate&Barrel.com.
These are especially nice because they have a lot of weight to them so they can hold substantial size stems and as you can see I loaded them up with filler too.

All you need is Love

Da dadada dah!
Sorry I have been on a Beatles kick since Christmas, Rory bought us the best of the The Beatles from 1962-66 & 1967-70. So its been nothing but the boys from across the pond for over a month.

So get on with it! With Valentines Day in just a little over 2 weeks, and I am seeing some lovely decor in Blog world. Personally I have never decorated for Valentines day, probably because of my very odd and very real refusal to decorate with the colors pink and red. But it is a new year and I think its time to give a little pink a try.

Trisha at The Sweet Survival has a great tutorial on this beautiful crepe paper rosette topiary. She has an awesome blog and the step by step shows you just how to replicate these adorable and simple pink paper roses. So I followed her lead, but with a Mrs. B twist and strayed from her perfect and neat little topiary to make something of my own.

Image via The Sweet Survival


This Jumanji like Wisteria vine at my parents house has been my inspiration lately for making my own wreath bases. I made one the other day out of cut wisteria vines, it's now on our front door. It needs the trimming anyway, and the materials are free.


I clipped quite a few of the newer growth vines that were still flexible to form them into the letters for Love. The lower case "e" was the hardest!


But where the vines wouldn't bend or go my way I simply spliced the vine and used it to tie knots like twine.


Then I got out the craft supplies and got crafting. I already had the pink crepe paper from a birthday party a couple years back where I made a pink flamingo piñata for a friend of ours.
Seen here
So I used the technique of crepe paper rosette making from the blog linked above. I collected Spanish moss from the oak tree droppings out front. Heated up the glue gun, and started to decorate the vine letter wreaths.


Okay so I didn't cover them with pink rosettes, just a few for color and I went a little crazy with the pale green Spanish moss for a very weathered natural look.






The larger heart shaped wreath was also formed out of extra wisteria vines and covered in Spanish moss. I think I might just be okay with this much pink in my house for a couple weeks, after all it does a fantastic job of reminding Mr. B that Valentines Day is coming up!

The Time has Come!

Check out the new clock, we pretty much love it! I have been on the look out for a clock for our home ever since we moved in. I had the space all picked out for 18 months, but I could not find one in the right size. I knew I wanted it to be wood and rustic, also large but it had to fit the wall.


So while I waited for Pottery barn to make a perfect clock for our home, like this but 4" smaller in diameter please.


Or this beauty that is a whopping 30" in diameter and that would make it about 7" too large to fit our wall.


So what did we do? We ordered it custom! This is our carved wine barrel clock, 23" diameter just our size. Its the perfect stain color, finish, and design too. Made out of the top of a used wine barrel, so its eco-friendly as a wine barrel is used only 3 times before it has to be discarded or made into something else.
But best of all its local, and supporting a local company is something I would rather do any day than buy from a large retailer like the Pottery Barn clocks above.
Oh it also goes along with our stave coat hook that I made last month out of a wine barrel, seen here.



Here is a close up of the 3 dimensional sunburst carving.


Check out their website.
ewoodart.com

January wreath

I have been longing for something to put up ever since all the holiday decor got packed away.
Do you think there is something wrong with a wreath in January? I didn't think so, neither did I.
So I made this stick wreath a week ago with clippings from our wisteria vine. I took the cut vines and just started forming them into a circle intertwining them into each other for structure, pretty simple and I figured I will eventually use it for something.


While at the farmers market today I picked up 2 bunches of these beautiful and what I figured are California native flowers, to me they look so tropical. Being a novice when it comes to plant names I only know some, the others I had too look up...but they are all beautiful and so large! I guess that's why they feel tropical to me, its the size and they are all so unique looking.

• Red hot poker
• Bird of paradise
  
• Status flower
• Protea it came in many shades of pink and one in a pale green
• Orange Protea
  

I also picked up a bunch of these eucalyptus branches for a couple bucks, I used some wire and cutters and I formed it into a wonderfully smelling green leafy wreath.



I stole a few flowers from the bouquet and wired them on the wreath. These Protea flowers are amazing, the tips of some are like feathers, so soft too.