We've had a few frosty mornings here, so at the weekend I made sure I went outside and picked some of the remaining hydrangea flowers. I've put them in a vase without water so they can dry out. If you have a hydrangea still flowering in your garden, why not bring some in and dry them out? They look pretty and last for ages.I made another tinsel tree in the vintage style. When I wrote about the one I made last week, I mentioned that I'd had several ideas on how to make them floating around in my head. The first one was quite tricky to make, trying to glue coathanger branches to a bamboo trunk. It took a bit of time, but it worked. It also gave the air of fragility I was after. The second tree has a slightly chunkier look to it, but was much quicker to make. You can compare the two here.
Instead of attaching the branches to the trunk, I drilled holes through the bamboo and then pushed the wire branches through and secured with hot glue.
It is tricky to drill through a bamboo cane without the drill slipping, but it can be done. Just take great care if you do it. After that, instead of coating the trunk with glitter and attaching the tinsel along the branches so it sat flat on top of the wire, I just glued and twisted tinsel around it.
The chunky tree is going to be used upstairs in a narrow space, so the branches are quite short for this reason. It still looks a bit vintage, which I'm pleased about, but even though it was trickier to make, the first tree is still my favourite. The ice bucket of the first tree has now been half filled with cement, to give it a bit of weight and keep everything in place. I will do the same with the second tree.
To cover the top of the cement, I'm going to mix this decorative sand with glitter and glue, and spread on the top. 
It's available from [The Range], and costs £2.Now all obvious traces of Christmas are back in the garage. I still don't want to bring anything out yet, it feels too early and I'm not feeling festive. I don't mind working on things, but as soon as they're finished - out they go!
I'm loving my 'white month', the house feels calm and so do I.
I found some new letters in 'The Range' at the weekend. They are cardboard and very delicate.
Nice and small, so useful for all sorts of projects, and again they only cost £2.
You just know that I'm making a few garlands with them, don't you?
Last night I spent a lovely time covering letters with glitter by candlelight.