From the brush pile to a place of honour in my dining room, these spruced up branches were the perfect accent. In thinking of an arrangement for a corner of my dining room, I decided I wanted something tall and not too fussy. In previous years, this plant stand held an arrangement of poinsettias at Christmas time, and the flowers get changed with each season.

I shopped around for some pretty branches and decided I could easily make the perfect thing from what I already had available. After staring at the branches on the brush pile and noticing how graceful some of them were, I got the idea to pretty them up and display them inside. Yes, they are Christmassy but I will keep these out for the entire winter.

After snipping several branches and pruning away unwanted stray parts, I brought them inside and gave them a good cleaning with damp paper towels. Then I took them outside to prime them with Krylon spray primer. I have to say, the product was disappointing for this project. It just did not cover no matter how many coats I sprayed.

I ended up using some fabulous ceiling paint that worked wonderfully well; high coverage and quick drying. I applied the paint with a sponge brush. Then I set all the primed branches in my lovely tall vase (a gift I was anxious to use) and let them dry thoroughly.

I tied a green ribbon around the green glass vase just to see if I liked the look. It was kind of woodsy but I liked it. My plan was to add white mini twinkle lights for sparkle, but I didn't like the green wires and could not find the minis with white wires. Besides, my container is glass and would show all the messy wires.

Sparkly Snow Needed

Although the matte white branches looked nice, I still wanted them to sparkle or to look more "snowy". The snow I tried didn't make any impact.