Monday, April 11, 2011

Spring Table Version 2 and 3

So, last Friday we had the tree trimmers come to our place and trim all of the trees in our back yard. Oh my goodness! What a difference it made. Not only did they take all of the dead and broken branches out of all of the trees, but they really spruced up all of them at the same time. And...an added bonus...they raked the entire yard to clean up after themselves, thereby raking up and cleaning my entire yard! I no longer have the dog poop hall of fame in my back yard! They got out the trash under the lilac bushes that had been there for YEARS I'm ashamed to admit. Oh, it was definitely well worth it. Take a look at my beautiful black walnut tree now! I wish with all my being that I had taken before pictures of all of our trees. I think I'm going to try and find some old pictures that I may have trees in the background or something so I can do a before and after. All I can say is it was SO WORTH IT! If you've never had your trees trimmed and you have very old, very tall trees like we do, call someone and get it done. You'll be so glad you did!

Now most of the tree debris they shredded with this machine that scared the living daylights out of me. I mean if you just by chance put your hand in there I really think it would suck your entire body in and you would be compost from then on out. It just made sawdust out of huge limbs! But, they did leave one small patch of branches in our burn pile. Of course we won't be doing any burning any time soon as our county and I think pretty much the entire state of Texas is on a no-burn watch right now. It's so hot and windy and dry a small spark could light up the entire neighborhood. So, this pile will have to remain for a little while. But, actually this worked out for me VERY WELL for my Spring table. Yep, out to the pile to pick out some cool looking branches to use.

These are the ones I came up with. I chose them for their height and the branching quality of each of them. My plan is to turn them into fake cherry blossom branches to decorate with. So, I started with these...

Next, I purchased 2 silk flowers at Hobby Lobby (half off of course!!!). These were the perfect ones! They had just the right small blossom on them. And they were a nice blend of white and pink.

So, I removed all of the blossoms from the big cluster and was left with these.

Then I just hot glued each of the blossoms to the branches at each intersection and wherever there was a "bud" looking spot on the branches. I ended up with these lovely "Cherry Blossoms".


Next, I bought this moss sheet from Hobby Lobby. It is basically green moss that comes in a solid sheet.

I took half of it and put it in the bottom of this glass jar I already had. Then I added the rest of the eggs that I got at TJ Maxx and voila...a nice apothecary jar with grass and eggs.

I also cut a square of the moss and lined the bottom of the bird cage, under the bird nest in there.

I used one of the small branches and put it inside the bird cage to give it some more interest and height. I really want a small bird in there perching on the branch and I know the perfect one to use, but it's an ornament in my Christmas decor and I need to go in the attic to get it. I'm just not convinced it will look great because the bird is gold and I think the bird needs to have some color in there. I may look online and see what I can find. In the meantime, I like how it's looking now, even without a bird in there.

So, back to the branches. These are the rest of them and I just got busy gluing the blooms on them.


I went to the spare bedroom and found this cute pitcher that I had back there. It is perfect for holding the branches and it keeps in line with the bird theme going on too. The branches look great in it!


On the other side of the table with the apothecary jar I just used a single branch and put it in an extra large green wine bottle. At this point I called it done. I liked it. But, I didn't love it. I slept on it overnight and kept looking at it, thinking what is wrong? I decided it was the single branch in the wine bottle. It just looked small and WRONG! OK, back to the drawing board on that side of the table. I went back out to the branch pile and picked out a few more branches and glued on more blooms. Then I had to put my thinking cap on and figure out what to put them in. AHA! I remembered this pitcher I have in the kitchen. The colors were perfect and actually brought a nice punch of color to the table as well as being the perfect size to hold the branches.



Oh yes, so much better!

Now, it's done and I'm so happy with it. My final (well so far anyway) Spring table. I'm still going to look for a small bird for the cage but in the meantime every time I walk by this table I just love it!!!!

2 comments:

Terri said...

This is a test. Are my comments working?

Sassy said...

yes the comments work! and I LOVE the table! very cool branches!!