Thrifty Thinking

Bring renewed life to vintage finds by pairing them with blooms and budding branches in lively springtime displays sure to brighten your rooms.

Matthew Mead offers tips for welcoming spring by combining natural materials and vintage wares.

Follow Mother Nature’s cues and align your decorating pursuits with the earth’s reawakening. Freshly unfurled petals and tender green leaves provide fodder for all manner of imaginative vignettes. Warmer, brighter days pull attention to outdoor spaces, making it a perfect time to ornament your porch, patio or walkway with the signs of the season and relish the feeling of rebirth, and you can extend the celebratory mood indoors as well.

Grab a basket and some garden shears and head outside to see what you can forage for free—branches, flowers and budding shrubs are all suitable materials. Check your yard for forsythia, flowering quince, cherry, azalea and apple. Branches can be forced to bloom by placing the cut ends in water to add a splash of style anywhere. Flowering bulbs and spring-blooming flowers, including tulips, daffodils, violets and hyacinth, are fair game as well. Mix in some citrus fruits to give your arrangements a little zest.

Augment nature’s bounty with a selection of vintage goods and combine them to create points of interest outside and all through your house. Focus on basics that you already have. Seed boxes, pie pans, baskets and containers all can be reused, repainted or repurposed to create new vignettes that are fresh and engaging, while you may want to leave concrete statues, vintage bowls, and old boxes, crocks, pottery and baskets as they are. Once you’ve gathered your goods, it’s time to spring into action and assemble unique groupings brimming with country style.

Bunny Bountiful

Nestle a rabbit figure, such as this metal doorstop, within a large basket and surround it with forsythia branches. If you don’t have fresh ones available, you can opt for faux alternatives. Position the piece as a table centerpiece or on a bench or vintage crate in your entry.

Lemon Shake-Up

Squeeze a few blooms into a lemonrind vase to form a pretty chair decoration for a spring gathering.

Cut one end off a lemon and scoop out the contents, leaving the rind. With a wooden skewer, punch a hole in each side of the lemon and fashion a handle from wire or ribbon. Fill the lemon with water and several flowers snipped from your garden. Hang it on a chair or even on a cupboard door or peg rack. The lemon rind will last for several days.

Panning for Gold

Make a foolproof centerpiece by piling a mix of fresh lemons and brown eggs into a yellowware milk pan. Arrange the produce any way you like. Fill the container with water and tuck in flowers and twigs. Change the water and blooms every few days, or skip the water and use faux flowers. This arrangement is great as a tabletop focal point or displayed on a cupboard shelf.