Laurel Wreaths

So Christmas sales, Christmas sales… I find myself awash in daily email deals. I resist them all! (Ha. Well, I try).

And you should know that I am not an artificial anything type of person. A friend was standing at my kitchen counter once idly teasing at a fern I had there while we were talking. He looked at me shocked  ”Whoa, these are real!” when he pulled off a frond into his hand by accident. Um, yeah.

Therefore I was skeptical of artificial wreaths (the one in my kitchen is the real deal) but when I saw that Ballard Designs had these good looking fakes on a super duper “Hey, we have to unload all the Christmas junk!” sale, I thought, “wouldn’t it be nice to hang one from each window arch on the Laurel Street Cottage?” So here we go… “Introducing the Permo-Wreath. Now with 40% more wreath!”

Permo-Wreath from Ballard Designs

I'll have to hand it to Ballard....

...these do look very convincing.

Wow. I made this scale drawing. I am a geek. Yes, yes I am.

I decided to fit the smallest window, the glass in the front door, then match the other three in size and hang them all at that same height. They looked a little puny to me in this drawing.

So I was fretting a bit (you know, the usual ‘wreath fretting’ that one does. You know, right?) that they might be too small while I waited for them to arrive… until my drive home down Prytania Street in New Orleans last night – one of the prettiest residential stretches I know. I saw a monster Garden District mansion with only a single small wreath on it’s huge front door. I stopped worrying, it looked elegant. Bigger is not always better, I suppose.

So this morning before work I got to fumbling around with fishing twine and hooks and ladders and hammers and hung me up some wreaths!

I should've had a little more coffee in me before I started this before work. Pay no attention to the enthusiastic Jasmine vine growing on the fence. It's A-type personality is getting to me a bit. It's getting a haircut tonight. Maybe with my chainsaw.

My lunch hour: Fluffing up these extremely cheap ready-made bows. These won't last long. Still looking for that ribbon tying tutorial, if there's even any more ribbon left in stores at this point...

But even those cheap bows bring it all together somehow. Merry Christmas from Laurel Street, Y'all!