pussy willow, daffodil foliage, and aconite foliage in celery seed tin

I'm not sure Crown Colony (a Safeway brand) still even exists, but this little tin of celery seed was still on my shelf this morning, when I needed celery seed. Used the last of it in a cole slaw dressing then left the tin sitting around hoping it would inspire me to put something in it. It didn't happen immediately, but I eventually realized black pussy willow would suit it.  First, I added some tiny pussy willow twigs, then, to hold that upright, some dead cryptomeria foliage, then, for good bright green color, some daffodil foliage, then for REALLY bright green color, one umbrella-like leaf from a winter aconite plant.

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I can see from the photo, in a way that I couldn't see it in the kitchen, that the lines of this arrangement could use some tweaking! And this won't last very long, because I discovered immediately that the little tin leaks. I emptied it of water and decided to use it anyway, because the pussy willow doesn't really need water and the daffodil foliage and aconite leaf will hold up until at least after dinner without it.  

scrambled eggs

You know you may be getting a little to deeply into your flower arranging when you change the way you crack your breakfast egg to make a vase! That's what happened this morning, because I wanted to drop a scrambled egg daffodil (that's a variety with many sort of poorly organized petals) into an eggshell I had used for a vase yesterday, but this morning, I wanted the eggshell taller, so I knocked just the top off of it.  To make it stand up on a plate, I attached it to the plate with a drop of floral adhesive. Voila--sweet vase.  I had this all set up with daffodil in place, when I decided it would be fun to put the top of the eggshell in the photo (as if the emerging daffy--think chick--had popped it off), so I had to fish that out of the compost bucket. Crazy, crazy. But fun! And I do love the sight of a scrambled egg emerging from an eggshell! Second photo shows a different, fully open scrambled egg daffodil in the eggshell.

Thanks to Audrey Suhr for these beautiful blue eggs (from her chickens)!

daffodil in egg shell

I couldn't throw these beautiful bluish egg shells away, so they sat around the kitchen until today when I decided to use one as a vase. To keep it upright (so it could hold water), I put a tiny bit of floral adhesive between it and the plate underneath. As soon as I finished this, it occurred to me that I should have used a Scrambled Egg daffodil!  Maybe I'll try that tomorrow.

black pussy willow (with steak knife)

This black pussy willow is so gorgeous I could drop it into anything and it would look pretty, but the most appropriate thing I could find to drop it into was this bamboo-esque vase. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a weighty liner and the pussy willow made it top-heavy so, to make it all stand up straight, I had to jam a steak knife between the wooden sticks of the vase and into the gap between the window and the jam to make the whole thing stand up. I defy you to find the black handle of the steak knife in this arrangement, though!

For the record, it snowed this morning, it's really cold outside right now, and the radiator near this windowsill is cranking out heat! .

daffodils and New Yorker cover

I was cleaning my desk when I discovered this copy of a 2008 New Yorker cover Louise Witherspoon had sent me. (Louise must have been cleaning her desk, too!) It's such a wonderful cover--lady standing on her front porch exalting in spring weather & flowers. It's cold in Virginia today, but it's also sunny, and the angle of light says spring. I propped the NewYorker cover up in the windowsill (on a clipboard) and used it as a prompt for an arrangement. The daffodils and hellebores are in a turquoise coffee cup, and the only constraint on this arrangement was trying to keep the exultant lady visible!  

weeds and a twig

My daughter and I were chatting today about how important it is to learn to recognize spring weeds, because if you can't tell a weed from a new garden flower seeding, you'll pull the seedling up! So: today I decided to arrange with spring weeds. In this tiny little vase are hairy bittercress (beautiful little weed with deeply cut leaves and tiny white flowers), henbit (magenta flowers), and marsh marigold. Unlike the first two weeds, marsh marigold is something I actually planted in my yard, but give it another year or two and it will be a weed! There is also one tiny, tiny twig in this arrangement, and it was SO much fun to add for this reason: I spotted this slender little thing only because it was sticking up above the snow one day. It's sort of stiff and woody but not part of a shrub; it's just a leftover weed or wildflower of some sort. Anyway, I brought it home and left it lying around the kitchen, where, today, it was the perfect thing to add to this arrangement. The hole in this vase is only about 1/3 inch wide and, by the time I had added the bittercress, the henbit, and the marsh marigold, there wasn't room for anything else, unless it happened to have a really tiny, stiff stem that could make its way past all those mushy stems--and my beautiful little twig could!

Henbit!!

Oh, how Iove this little weed! But today, around 4 o'clock, when I was trying to remember its name, I couldn't. I had picked some while waiting for paint to be mixed at a local paint store (this and purple dead nettle were blooming around the parking lot), and when I went inside with my little bouquet the proprietor was interested in knowing what the weed was. Blank. Total mental blank. I couldn't remember its name and it's a name I've cherished since I first learned it about 30 years ago. I was sad because here was a chance to teach someone the name and I couldn't. When I got home and stopped trying to retrieve it, I thought the name would come to me, but it didn't. Until tonight at 7:41 pm. Henbit!! Boy would I love to know what twist of fate or gift of grace caused that neuron to finally fire.