Hi...Hope this is a little helpful for you.. I made grapevine wreaths in several sizes over the years, and hang them in the attic until I want to decorate and hang them. I'm always changing 'their look'. Here's a small one that I hung in the kitchen with a small gingerbread decoration .. This is one I left plain and added some 'whisps' to soften the look... Another idea - instead of hanging...I used it as a base for a Centerpiece. I hung a few small ones decorated for Christmas inside on the windows.... Unfortunately, I don't have any other pictures to show, but I hope these few ideas were helful. Good luck and come back to share what you do. jane

Centre the wreaths ON the windows, about two thirds of the way up from the windowsill. I use wreaths with colored lights on my windows every year, and this awesome. Placed on the windows, you get to enjoy the wreaths from inside, too. Plus it's tradition: wreaths were of holly (and other sharp, evergreen materials) were placed on windows by ancient pagans to prevent the entry of spirits on the longest night of the year, December 21st, the Winter Solstice. (Fyi, "pagan" is latin for country dweller or villager, NOT "witch" as many people think) As with many ancient solstice traditions (xmas trees, mistletoe yule logs, eating oranges & hazelnuts) wreaths were adopted as part of the celebration of Christ's birth by country folk who weren't completely sold on christianity and didn't want to abandon their important celebrations that were tied into seasonal cycles of the sun, moon, earth and crops. The Winter Solstice was a joyous celebration of rebirth and vanquishing darkness: the return of the sun, lengthening days. And hey, around about Dec 21st when nightfall's at 4pm and life revolves around feeding the woodstove and shovelling the driveway in the dark, I totally get their point : p

with the amount of activity and mountain of details that goes into a kitchen remodel is is easy to loose perspective: we are very fortunate to be able to do the kinds of kitchen projects we are talking about in today's economy. yesterday's reminder for me: i had a lovely thanksgiving with friends. one guest at the dinner has been unemployed for two years. he has depleted all of his savings and was weeks away from having to list his beloved house for sale. thankfully he has just received a job offer and begins in january. his kids will need to go to state schools as the college fund was also spent to keep the roof over their head. he is tremendously talented and well deserving of this job and it is shocking and scary it took so long for such a talented individual to find work. we are lucky to be able to debate where to put the holiday wreath... these are problems of abundance. wherever you put it i am sure it will look lovely.

After a couple of conversations with the Christmas Central CSR, who told me that the Cheyenne wreath was the lushest 36" wreath, I did a little research about LED versus incandescent lights. It's clear to me that for a small scale decoration, incandescent is best because I want soft traditional lighting. Even though LED claims to last tens of thousands of hours, the high price doesn't seem worth it, plus you get those overly bright bulbs which I find unappealing inside my home. Also I "chatted" with online support this morning about the warranty. The warranty, which really covers whether or not the lights work for a certain period of time, is for a three month season, lights on for 6 hours per day. This means that I would be lucky to get two seasons out of the lights and then replace the string. I'm going to order the Cheyenne wreath today, along with an inexpensive storage case that allows you to hang the wreath to keep it fluffy and nice. To keep costs in line, I'm going to decorate the wreath with berries, pine cones, some shatterproof red ornaments, and ribbon this year. Here is a sample of what has taken hours to find in six stores: a burgundy-red grosgrain ribbon (unwired) in two different widths, plus brilliant red wire-edge satin ribbon (I also bought a smaller 2" width), wired gingham and unwired gingham. No checkerboard ribbon but HL did have a cool looking harlequin ribbon. I even went to a specialty ribbon store. I'd prefer not to use burlap looking ribbon because I don't think it will hold up well over the years, but it does lend a very charming look. None of these ribbon spools were from the Christmas ribbons aisle, but instead in the fabric or floral departments of HL and JoAnns. Michaels had a very limited selection of non-holiday red ribbon. It's hard to find a quality wire-edge red ribbon in the Christmas decorations department... there's always a little something extra, like gold or glitter on the edges, or velvety or sheer, red ribbon. The ribbon cost about $4.00 each, including coupons/sales. The little case of berries is from Target: 40 picks for $6, and the deep red ornaments are from Walmart: $3.48. I'm interested in the matte and shiney ones-no glitter. Still looking for brighter red shatterproof ornaments like this deep red/burgundy set, I've found them only in red/green/gold/white assortments, and the other colors are unneeded. Once I receive the wreath, it will be easy to decide what works and return the unused trim. It's all good!