Porch in Transition: Winter Decor

Yesterday, between errands, taking care of the kids, cleaning the oven, doing laundry, making dinner, and baking rolls (oh, and all of the other daily minutiae) I managed to put together a new porch decoration. I'm pretty proud of myself, too. Okay, so I know I complained about people who rush by Thanksgiving in their hurry to get on to Christmas. Well, while this leans towards Christmasy, I'm going to say it's just a winter porch in transition.

My mom pointed out an article to me in a recent Better Homes and Gardens. The article highlighted some great floral porch arrangements.  There was one in particular that caught my eye. The center piece was a bunch of red stick dogwood branches surrounded by pine. It was very simple and eye catching. Going from memory, I visited a local home decor center and looked for some branches that would work. I found some! Not dogwood, but a lovely shade of red nonetheless.

We already had a big pot sitting on the porch courtesy of the previous homeowners.  We also had some pesky pine trees overhanging our fence courtesy of the neighbors. I snipped a few of those branches. The same pine trees love to drop large pine cones into our play area, so I collected those as well.

I dug down in the dirt, placed the branches and then stabilized them a little with some rocks. Then I cut apart the pine branches and stuck them in the dirt surrounding the red branches.

Finally, I laid the pine cones on top of the pine branches to add a little interest. I love the end result even if my husband's first comment was, "looks like a miniature Chihuly."

 The other side of the porch is still strongly leaning towards fall and Thanksgiving, I'll start to transition that next week. No rush.

Have a Happy Day!

~MJ