Tutorial: Birch Branch Easter Trees

Yay! The first day of spring is almost here! Kind of. Here in Minnesota the weather's grey and in the low 30's. Yesterday felt a good deal more spring-y. But in my Mops meeting today we talked about Easter and Easter traditions and that really did help the spring feeling along a bit.

As a mother with a young child I find myself in the position of not only passing along the traditions I grew up with, but able to instigate new one's as well. The tradition of decorating Easter eggs is a fun one we both enjoy but after the actual decorating the eggs just sit in the fridge until I throw them out. I wanted a better way of enjoying them. So this year we're going to make cute little blown egg ornaments and hang them on our Easter Tree. That required an Easter tree. Coincidentally, our mentor mom had this same egg project in mind for my moms group and so I volunteered to make 18 of these trees. 18. It turned out to be a fun and easy craft, one that my son helped me with. So I thought I'd pass along the how-to instructions for you and your family. Enjoy!!!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Easter Tree
Tools and Materials
a container
a block of styrofoam to fit container
3-5 branches (I used birch)
5-8 silk flower heads (mine were pulled off a stem of hydrangea)
Silk leaves (I cut them from the hydrangea stem)
Raffia or moss (optional)
Hot glue

Directions
1. Cut your styrofoam to fit your container. I used an empty paint can for my container and to judge how much foam to trim I pressed my foam onto the opening, thus getting an imprint that showed me right where to cut. Just a little trick. :) Using the hot glue, apply glue to the bottom of your foam and then place in container.

2. Insert your branches by pushing end into foam. If you'd like to add hot glue to the ends you can, it really secures them nicely. I don't because I like to be able to rearrange the branches if needed to get their placement just right. :)




3. Either insert wire ends of silk leaves into foam, or glue them into place with hot glue. Use the raffia or moss to cover any foam that might be still showing.





4. Pull the florets off a silk hydrangea and use the hot glue to stick to branches. To cover the glue and help secure the flower head I either pressed a second flower to back of first, or would wrap one of the petals around the branch to the back and use to cover glue. Do this right away while the glue is still warm.



Add any decorations you have (or make the stitched carrots from last post) and display somewhere you'll be able to soak up it's spring beauty- I have mine displayed as a centerpiece on my dining room table with a little nest and some daffodils. It's an oh-so-easy springtime vignette!

PS- I think this would make a beautiful outdoor display idea for early spring entry pots as well. A bunch of birch branches with some flower heads glued on and it'll look to others like you have flowering branches framing your front entry.

Creating a Focal Point

This weekend I was reminded of how amazing a good focal point can be. I'd been called in to create the floral decorations for a church dinner that was being held Sunday morning in our building's gymnasium. It's a huge space and very very gym-ish. Basketball hoops, court lines on the floor, and banners on all 4 walls. Impossible to disguise any of it. So instead of trying to disguise it I used a trick I'd learned as a wedding and events floral designer. I used the concept of a focal point. In event design this would usually be somewhere that was immediately visible to the eye upon entering the room. It would be big and glorious and immediately set the mood in the mind of the attendee that this was an occasion. By drawing the eye and creating that first impression I kept the attendees from noticing the room en large- at least until after that first impression was made. Secondly, they would notice the tables set with matching arrangements. I like to have two or three different styles of varying heights to add interest.

I also placed the arrangement on a round table sitting on top of a beautiful golden rug. The round shape contrasted nicely with squares and rectangles of all the satellite tables. Again, adding to the visual weight of the focal arrangement.
When I was doing weddings I would always visit the sites with the bride prior to creating a design. This way I was able to walk through and take notice of the places that the guests would linger. This might be the entrance, or an alcove, the dining table, or a staircase. Placing flowers in these places enhanced their value to my mind because they would register longer in the mind of the guest. Thus, they would make a bigger impression. It was also much more elegant than throwing money at everything because if you followed that tact the guest would tune out almost immediately because of the visual overload. As in a painting, the eye needs a chance to rest, and if you don't give it that rest it becomes fatigued quite easily.

Recently, a friend mentioned that a good party planner would plan their evening so it included high and low moments over the course of the night. If you constantly strive to keep the evening strung high the guest can feel overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted.

But now I'm thinking. I guess this might be true of life as well. If not for the depressions we might not appreciate as acutely the high moments. I guess we need both.