You'll Find Fresh Flowers On My Christmas Tree

It all began with a humble bottle on a string.

It was all that I needed to have the ideas start sprouting.
At first single blooms hanging from my lemon tree in the garden came to mind and then when I decided to put our Christmas tree up it suddenly occurred to me to hang these sweet little bottles on it !

As many of you know, I began studies earlier this year to become a florist.  I have always had quite the love for flowers and my garden, so it came as no surprise to anybody when I decided to follow my dream and go back to studies. With 4 children and husband fully supportive I have had an amazing first year of studies and look forward to my final year next year.

I have never ever quite fitted the traditional Christmas mold with red and green decorations.
Each year I chose another theme to decorate our Christmas tree.  We have had lots of different themes from nests, dolly peg angels, a pink theme, feather theme and the list goes on.

This year the children handed the reigns to me and gave me full decorating rights to choose anything my heart desired. After a lot of thought I decided to gather all of my favourite things that I love and somehow feature them all on our tree at the same time.

                                  Somehow it all turned out just beautiful and I love the result !

vintage gloves, peg angels, china, home made paper decorations, nests, feathers and even an antique evening bag grace our tree.
                         A string of lights and an angel on the top complete my vintage look

.......and then as I sat admiring my efforts a rosy posy thought came to mind !   What about fresh flowers on my tree !
So off I trotted to the flower market to find  some suitable blooms.  The first flower that  I saw as I glanced at the buckets of flowers was the humble Carnation.

The poor Carnation has all but been shunned over the years as an old fashioned granny style flower which was perhaps too over used in the 1970's.  As a child I always noticed that visiting our friends newborn babies in hospitals every single floral arrangement had Carnations !  I was so fascinated that they came in bright blue. Quite the miracle of Mother Nature when looked at by a child. I of course had no idea that these blue flowers were indeed sprayed to be this colour.

So when these pretty raspberry red Carnations all but jumped out of the bucket into my hands (ok, well that may be an exaggeration) I knew that they would be happily smiling on my tree by the end of the day.  My little hanging bottles would be their new place of residence.

So these humble bottles were filled with.......

......these pretty little Carnations

and then I added a few of these

and these....

and who can resist a rose or two !

and while some were sleeping...

My blank canvas turned from this

to this !

and this was my cherry on top

Isn't she lovely ?

and before you know it I had unpacked my Christmas cottages      (but I'll show you them some other time)

My precious evening purse that I bought to remember a loved one by hangs pride of place on the tree.

It's like my special person in heaven is enjoying Christmas with us.

My antique greeting card collection came out and I selected one or two to show off as well !

Who said that this humble Carnation has had it's day !

Don't those friendly little faces look pretty and they smell so sweet as well !

and as my day is getting darker while sitting here next to my tree, I know that I will soon turn the sparkly lights on very soon.

I really do love Christmas

Isn't it so much fun !

I know that many of you will be wanting to see some close up pics of my tree decorations so I will show them to you all tomorrow.

I hope that our Christmas tree finds you smiling and inspiring you to find something special to decorate your tree with.

Think of all of your favourite things and then get to work !

I find that keeping the colour scheme simple keeps a nice balance and looks the most effective.

Let me know what you decide on, I'd love to hear some of your stories and see some pics.

See you all again tomorrow

Melanie

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