front porch and a few Urns

I had been looking for some artificial trees to decorate my front porch 

Urns with at the craft stores. But everything was either too tall, 

small or expensive still! Then I saw these beautiful Urns over at 

Taking the Scenic Route and told Roberta how much I loved them.

So I decided I would do my own version of this.

I had a few picks left over that I hadn't used yet and some silver ornaments too. 

So after I gathered everything up I just started to create, not really having any shape in mind.

Our tree is artificial, so my husband brought home some greenery from 

a local tree farm and at the time, they only had Douglas Fur. 

I bought a huge block of Styrofoam at Walmart. I like the floral foam better, it is SO much easier to cut!!

I only needed something at the top of the Urn so the stuff would stay in place. After an hour cutting through the center, then splitting that another hour again I looked around the house to see what I could use to anchor the Urn. It is plastic and I didn't want it to tip over. So I went to the pantry and got out 4 cans of soup. They worked great.

First I added the real greenery, spacing it out to get a full look. I liked Rebecca's 

use of 2 different types of greens, but ya gotta work with whatcha got, right?

I had it done in no time after I added some silver glittered curly stems, some
green berry, some sugary red berries, a long strand of pine cones,
as well as individual pine cones at the base to cover the Styrofoam.  

Then a grouping I made of 5 silver ball ornaments strung together to mimic the larger gazing ball in Roberta's Urn. I used the same ribbon as I did on my staircase and a few silver reindeer ornaments.

Please excuse my dead plants, dirty porch, faded rug, this is typically what the 

front of the house looks like during the long, cold winters in Missouri!

I put a few of my cable knit sweater pillows out on the chair that stays out year round, 

in the hopes to soften the look a little.

I use this lantern almost every season, just switch out the contents, 

but I could not tell you where I got it.

I think if I add another kind of greens, it might break it up a bit, but overall I am pleased with the new Urns!

The whole thing really only cost me a few bucks for the greens and a 1/2 roll of ribbon I got at Michaels for 1/2 off!!

My Dad just shipped this ceramic Santa back to me. You can't tell in the photo, 

but the head is about life size.I painted it for my parents in 1989. 

There is a black pipe that goes into his mouth, we are trying to locate that. 

I can still remember making him, he is a cutie, no?!

Linking to: