Springtime centerpiece: birds and flowers

If you had been at our house last Saturday morning, you would have found Feline Assistant and myself in the midst of a project involving twigs, flowers, birds, Spanish moss and glass bottles.

I had gone to Hobby Lobby earlier in the week with a few simple things on my list - namely, the birds and Spanish moss for my big glass cylinder. However, as always happens, I came upon these pretty pink fabric flowers and the smaller white ones, so the project grew on me.

Notice how Link is being so helpful with the birds.

Whenever I purchase bunches of flowers, greenery, autumn foliage or whatever, the first thing I do is cut them apart. I can't bear to just plop the whole thing in a big vase and call it good.

As I said earlier, this idea for the big glass cylinder was the inspiration behind the whole project. I ended up keeping it really simple and empty, and didn't put near as many birds in it as I thought I would when I was purchasing supplies, and also decided to keep all the same color of birds.

The extra-tall pillar candle was one of several that my mom gave me for Christmas this year, one of her thrifting finds.

I love these little pink birds. These and the other birds I purchased are the same ones I used for the glitter birds in the decorating theme for the 2009 Roundup Christmas party.

So, after I was finished with the cylinder I still had two packages of birds left over, and odds and ends twigs from my cut-apart job, as well. So I took the bigger stems and perched the birds on them, tucking some of the smaller twigs in around them. The glass bottles I simply selected from my collection that fills the entire cupboard top on one side of my kitchen.

I really like the little yellow birds, too, and at two dollars for four of them, they're pretty inexpensive to use in simple decorations like these.

My Feline Assistant continued to assist. The last package of birds I have are these white ones, and I still haven't used them for anything.

He's very proud of his handiwork.

The last arrangements we made were the pink and white flowers, which I was really pleased with. I selected more bottles from my collection, of varying heights, shapes and sizes, and cut apart the pink and white flowers, arranging them amongst the bottles until I (Link) was happy with the results.

I was just doing this on a whim, but several people have asked me if this was how I was going to do our May wedding reception centerpieces. The more I thought about it, the more the idea grew on me. They're very simple, and cheap, with Hobby Lobby's 50 percent off weeks, and if it's windy we could fill the jars with sand to keep them in place.

As it is, I gave three of these jars to Jody when I came into the office to work last Saturday, and the rest are still sitting on the table. And Link would be, if he had the perfect cat life he thinks he should.