Woodland vase

Last weekend we visited our friends, Sue and Gordon, and I was very taken with a vase display that Sue had created. So taken in fact, that I decided to have a go at making one myself and spent a very happy hour on Sunday putting it together.

For the display, you will need a large plain glass vase. It can be round, square, rectangular - whatever you have.

Next, you'll need something to fill the vase with. I used a selection of glass pebbles, pine cones, moss and lichen-covered twigs. Sue gathered her moss in the beautiful Scottish location of Loch Ness. Mine was gathered in the rather less glamorous surroundings of Hobbycraft.

And, of course, the all important element of lights. These are battery-powered micro LED lights on a silver wire and were £3.50 from Wilkinsons. Don't they give off an amazing amount of light for such tiny bulbs?

In this version, I layered up the different ingredients, winding the lights in as I went, trying to get them as evenly distributed as possible.

The second version is more like the one Sue had made, though she had far better twigs than me - long and elegant whereas mine are short and stubby! The vase is only half-filled and the lights are strung around the twigs as well as in the vase. I added a few festive baubles for extra shine and colour.

Not a new idea, I know, but so effective and easy to put together. Can you imagine it in the summer with pebbles, shells and driftwood?

We've had a decorator in this week painting the stairwell and landing, so the house smells of paint. I hate when the house doesn't smell 'normal' and find it somehow unsettling.

And today we put up our Christmas tree! The paint smell must have unsettled me more than I thought because I managed to slip on the stairs carrying the boxes of decorations down. No harm done except for a grazed elbow: I was more worried about damaging the new paintwork! Tomorrow I need to write letters to go in some cards so not much time for blogging. I'll be back later in the week though with pictures of the tree. See you then. x