Fifty-two Weeks....!

And a Few Little Details....

It has been Fifty-two Weeks, Dear Readers, give or take a few days, since I embarked on my Blossom-a-week project for the Lilac bush! And I am ever so Happy to be able to say I did it! I made one (or two) a week for Fifty-two weeks! And now I have a box full of lilac blossoms which will soon cover the Spring blooming lilac shrub for The Folly Garden!

See? Here is the box with almost all the blossoms 

(remember that I had attached four of them to the shrub

 before I realized I had better complete other details first!)

And here also are this week's batch of ten leafy stems..... 

which makes the tally somewhere around eighty leafy stems..... 

only forty or so to go!

And since I am now on the brink of launching the stem attaching program.... 

I thought I had better take care of a few of those other Tiny details first...

Such as finally adding the fungus

 (which is very delicate and so it should be added last...)

to the bare stemmed Winter shrub.

Here you can see it closer... 

the fungus are on the dead stump at the back.

And I also added a few of the "sucker" stems.....

Which you can see in this overall view.

At this point I am just trying to make this shrub match

 the one that has the snow on the branches.

I am fairly certain that once the blooming lilac is completed 

I will be adding a whole bunch more suckers to the front of the bush.

But I want to complete the blooming one first!

And Another Tiny detail that needed to be done first Dear Readers, 

was preparing the nest for the Spring Blossoming Shrub!

I made a few Robin's eggs from sculpey

 and painted them Robin's egg blue!

I think they are a tiny bit too large....

 but they will be mostly hidden in the foliage...

so I am going to use them anyway.

And then the nest needed to be attached to the shrub.....

This always requires a surprising amount of delicate twigs and glue

 to fill the space between the branches...

(I really don't know how the birds do it!)

Now the nest is ready and waiting.... 

the birds cannot be far away...!

But I promise you I will not be showing them any time soon... 

because I will be busy working on the branches!

And even though I have reached my goal 

of blossoms for the shrub, Dear Readers,

 I will still be making blossoms for a while... 

because there need to be a few for bouquets!

And yes, there might even still be

 a Detail or Two added to the Winter shrub....

After all, it is still a few weeks until the Lilacs will bloom!