My husband was shopping for a new snow blower many miles from home. This shopping required going for a trip into the countryside, so I decided to accompany him. Once there, I realized that I should have brought along something to read. What was I thinking? We all know that it will take a man just about as long to buy a new snow blower as… as… it will take a woman to find the perfect man — a very l-o-n-g time.

So, I decided to go for a walk. It was one of those lovely mornings after a winter storm. The sun was shining and reflecting off the icy branches. Everything was sparkling. You know that magical look.

As I walked along the hedgerow I was mesmerized by the beauty of the beaten-down droopy foliage covered with a glittering incrustation of rime, and I thought: when I get home I'm going to make a floral arrangement that looks like this.

Once home, I trudged out to my gardens and scavenged any interesting twig or branch I could find. Pickings were slim at this time of year — a few daylily and iris pods, magnolia branches with a few stray leaves that had managed to withstand the winds, and the dried stems of gypsophila (baby's breath), Artemisia, Tricyrtis (toad lily), and Japanese anemone.

I sprayed the baby's breath and the Artemisia with glitter glue and then dipped the stems into glass glitter for a very ethereal, delicate, icy-crystal look.

I hand-dipped or brush-painted the remaining foliage with off-white pearlized acrylic paint — no spray painting unless you will be satisfied with inferior results.

A search through my vintage linens produced the perfect doily — round, with scalloped edges and shapes replicating the shapes in the vase I was using, which further emphasized and expanded the white winter scene while at the same time containing it.

A rummage of my craft drawer gave me flat-back glass pebbles to strew on top of the doily, adding to the icy look. Then I randomly added the delicate bits and pieces that had fallen off the stems as I was working on them, just as had happened to the foliage in the hedgerow.

And for evening charm, I added a very small string of fairy lights — at the base only.

To emphasize the serenity of the arrangement I added a couple of beautiful, dainty oriental figures, some gilded pine cones, and a tiny perfume bottle filled with love-in-a-mist seed pods.