January 28, 2014

Snuggle Your Vases In Sweaters

This is one of the coldest days of the year in many parts 
of the country so it's a good day to share the 2014 version
of how to snuggle your vases in sweaters. 

Even where I live in Alabama it's snowing!
 Well, it's not much snow compared to you folks in the
 North.  The arrows are pointing out our little accumulation
just in case you missed seeing it in the photo.

My vases are glad to be snuggled up in sweaters inside 
and not outside in the garden with the Kopy Kat Krows.


Once you make the sweater covers for your vases you
can bring them back out winter after winter for an easy
cozy update for your cold weather decorating. 

Last year I made some sweater vase covers and 
shared the "how to"s in the blog post

Last year I found four sweaters at the thrift store to
cut the arms off of to use as vase covers.

This year I found a few more sweaters at a thrift store
 to add to the mix.  Also I ran across some new problems
 that I'm going to share how I fixed them in case
 you have some issues too.
The sweaters with some pattern knitted in look more 
interesting on the vases.  Most of the sweaters cost  me about
$2 each.  I plan to make pillows out of the sweater bodies. 

Depending on the height of your vase, you may be able
to cover more than one vase with each arm.

Vases that are a similar diameter of an arm work best.
Just pull the sweater arm over the vase and then
cut off the excess after leaving a little of the 
sweater to tuck up under the vase.

Most sweater arms work fine to just tuck the cut 
edge under the base of the vase.  If you have trouble
with the sweater excess keeping the vase from sitting
level, you can try gathering it neatly and taping it 
down.  Also if the sweater edge does not want to 
stay under the vase, you can tape that also. 
P.S. Your vases don't have to be spanking clean for this project since the vase (or what is floating in it) doesn't show.

You can also use tape to make a grid over the mouth
of the vase to help support the greenery and flowers.

Stick the stems in the openings between the tape.

About the only decent real greenery I could find to gather
 this time of year was variegated pittisporum.  Usually I think
that the greenery on faux flowers is less real-looking than the
flowers so I pull the leaves off of most of the faux flowers I buy.
These are older faux hyacinths from the attic...
don't remember where I got them originally.  

Even though they are fraying a little, they still look pretty
good when used with real greenery.
If you are using real greenery or flowers, be sure to add and keep enough water in the vase.

The three real hyacinths that I found at the grocery store for
only $4 each (pretty good for a bulb AND a vase) to use for
this vignette bloomed out before I got everything together.



The leaves still looked fine so the dead blooms got 
cut off of the bulbs...

...and faux hyacinths were pushed down into the leaves.

A couple more "baby" hyacinth bulbs came home to
join the vignette too.  


Here's how the old and the new sweater vase covers 
and hyacinth bulbs all look together on the kitchen table...





Here are a few of my favorites vase covers...



The "baby" hyacinths have grown since the 
original pictures were taken.

They have blooms that are growing every day!

Keep your eyes open for sweaters to use for vase covers 
at thrift stores or other used clothing places...enjoy the hunt!

I am sharing this post at
Free Pretty Linky Party @ Free Pretty Things
Inspire Me Tuesday @ A Stroll Thru Life
Wow Us Wednesday @ Savvy Southern Style


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