Outdoor Arrangements for the Holidays

 I tried some of the wide webbed ribbon on a wire basket. I used natural greenery I picked out of the yard and environs. The pine and cedar held up pretty well, in spite of the heat and drought that we had when I first made it, but in the first picture the ugly agnus (eleagnus) began to go down after a couple days, so I removed it and added some pine cones, some silver spray painted bread poppy seed pods, and elephant's foot or  Elephantopus tomentosus, and a couple sprays of artificial berries. (If they were real berries, they might be poison sumac. Almost all white berries are poison, either to eat or to touch, according to Green Deane of Eat the Weeds blog)

These two outdoor planters have been livened up with pine branches and red bows.

This natural wreath is made from cedar as a base and brown fern fronds . There are a few pine cones added for more texture.

Another outdoor planted  "spruced" up with pine and cedar branches and a gold bow. The other accent is gold spray painted Golden Lace plant (Patrinia scabiosifolia). It did not dry bright enough to suit me for this purpose, hense the paint.

This is a dried wreath I was given several years ago. I store it in a plastic bag in the attic (carefully, as it is quite brittle now). A touch of white spray paint last year, and a new red bow this year round it out. It blends in nicely with the natural surroundings, except for the bow (of course). Interestingly, it still has a nice fur fragrance up close.