I itch to be out in the garden in January. This year, here in Memphis, that’s no problem - our unseasonably warm winter (it was seventy today) lets me get outside to putter in my beds at least once a week, between rainstorms. But there’s not much to do, though, once I’ve pushed some leaves around and picked up the latest round of sticks from the most recent rainstorm. The cold will return, and I’ve planned my “pretend I’m outside” projects to sustain me for the next few months. When you’re ready to do more than arrange supermarket flowers, here are some ideas:

Branch bouquets make cheap and dramatic floral arrangements. Nip outside and gather as many lovely fallen sticks as you can. Arrange them in vases, and leave them as they are, or decorate. I add fake birds for the holidays, or make paper leaves and flowers. You might try your hand and making tissue paper flowers - nothing fancy, just twisting some tissue into buds and wiring them on a branch. Or try glittering the branches by painting on some glue and sprinkling them with whatever color catches your fancy (silver is safe).

Create a miniature garden. There are two schools of thought in miniature garden design. The thorough indoor gardener will want to build a terrarium. More adept gardeners than I have detailed instructions for terrarium building. Choosing the container is half the fun: You can be upscale with a faux-French apothecary jar, or down-home with an upside down mason jar. Horrible china tchockes somehow look incredibly cool in a terrarium. Stick in any old figurine and a fern, and give your living room instant cool. But skip the china deer figurine. Deer are so 2008.

The more casual route is also more child-friendly. A moss garden, planted in a bit on dirt on top of gravel in a bowl will last for months if you mist it regularly. Stick in a little miniature supermarket tropical plant if it needs a focal point (though a bowl of moss alone is truly beautiful). Try adding small figurines. You could even use matchbox cars, or build a garden around some toys—try tiny Eskimos and make a statement about global warming. My grandmother makes a moss garden every winter and peoples it with tiny porcelain gnomes her grandmother bought her as a girl at a London flower show in 1935. She uses a mirror from a broken compact as a pond, and hand-letters tiny road signs. Last week, a sign was pointing towards New Year.

Forcing bulbs is a classic way of thumbing your nose at winter. And it’s always satisfying. Whether you plant the bulbs in gravel yourself, or use a pre-fabricated kit, like this one at Amazon, growing an Amaryllis indoors and watching it develop from tiny green tip to lush flower will help pass the time until spring. The scent of paperwhites makes February gray disappear.

There’s also charming children’s book by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace called Paperwhite which would be a lovely companion for a bulb-forcing project.

We love bins and baskets. We can throw - or advise smaller versions of ourselves to throw - toys and books into them for quick room cleaning.

Here’s a round-up of some of the more attractive bins and baskets on the market right now. You may want to order some as gifts for your home. The new toys are coming.

Woven felt baskets in red, blue, or green (pictured above), on sale at Pottery Barn Kids for $19.99 are one of the most attractive storage options I’ve seen. They are manage to look both handcrafted and high-design at. They’d fit into almost any décor. And at 12 inches square, they also fit into the cubby-style furniture that so many families favor.


Colorful woven nylon baskets from the Container Store are on sale for about $15. Their squared shape makes them useful for storing books or toys. The handles are great for moving them from room to room.


The cutest of our round-up, these totes from Clutter Free Kids include outside pockets, perfect for tucking away a special toy that merits more loving storage. The sturdy nylon totes come in a variety of patterns, and are generously sized at 16"x13".


This 13"x15" fuzzy storage bin is a steal at $13. I like the whimsy of the design - something practical, but cuddly.


These collapsible cotton canvas cubes - sold in a set of three, in sizes from 12" to 16" square - are affordable, attractive, and unobtrusive. $30 for a set of three at Space Savers.


Kangaroom's 30"x15"x16"Collapsible Toy Chest, available in pink or blue, gets consistently high marks from consumers. It is made of sturdy nylon panels and can be folded flat for storage when it isn't needed. $45 from Amazon.com.

This week I had the opportunity to try some plaster wall color from American Clay. Their colored plasters are marketed as a natural alternative to traditional house paints (though writing “traditional” to refer to latex paint instead of plaster feels silly - colored plaster is what people rich enough to afford color on their walls used for most of civilized history).

The product is intriguing. I love the timeless, worn look of colored plaster, and I’m actively trying out as many non-poisonous wall-coloring products as possible. Colored plasters bypass the off-gassing issues of conventional paint.

American Clay suggests that homeowners do not apply the products themselves but instead hire "artisans/applicators who have experience" using their products. Applying the sample colors to the tiles the company sent wasn’t hard - an imperfection is part of this look. But perusing the reader questions on the American Clay website will help you decide if you have the patience and ability to do this job yourself.


The plaster comes dry; you mix it with water until it’s “the consistency of pudding” and then smooth it onto the wall with a trowel. It stays moist for a long time (hours, in my climate) so you can take your time applying the color and rework any mistakes. The tiles the company sent me to try the colors on were quite rough, which made it easy to adhere the appropriate thickness of plaster. I wondered if they’d stick to painted walls as well, so I tried the plaster out on my own walls (I then wiped it off with water - no permanent damage) and it wasn’t much harder to get the right coating on the wall. But the application process detailed on the company's website is more complicated than just smoothing on the plaster. Most walls will need a base coat of special sanded primer. And there are a variety of finishing techniques that the final coat can be treated with for many different looks.

I tried three styles of plaster, Porcelina, Loma, and Marittimo. They vary primarily in the fineness of their grain. The color range is limited, but beautiful. None of the colors are too clean (“clean” colors, without a variety of pigments, often look tinny and wrong, while colors with a variety of pigments in them change slightly in different lights and look much more natural). Any of American clay colors will look beautiful in a home.

The Porcelina finish plaster is fairly simple to apply oneself. It smoothed on easily, and settled into a lovely matte finish. But the thicker and chunkier Loma and Marittimo, because of their higher sand quantities, are harder to work with. They are thicker and rougher. Their look is also more specific. I wouldn’t put them in a home that wasn’t built of adobe. But the finer Porcelina plaster would look nice in any home, especially one with 14-foot ceilings in Italy.


The look of colored plaster is not equivalent to paint. It’s much less perfect. It’s rustic. The texture of any of these three finishes would be at home in an adobe-walled home in the Southwest, or in California. I’d also recommend any of the finishes for a home lacking significant architectural details. Plaster color can give a new home a feeling of substance and permanence. But if you live in an older home with molding, pieced doors, and Victorian or Arts and Crafts details, only the Porcelina finish would compliment your home. And then, you’d need to be careful to finish it quite smoothly.

American Clay also provided me with some straw and some mica to add to the plaster. I love the mica - it gives a nice sheen which would be lovely in a dark living room. The straw is a nice touch for historic renovations, where the look of horsehair plaster, or plaster with straw is sought. When I remodel an eighteenth-century tavern (let me dream, please), I’ll use this!

Finally, you should be aware that these finishes are not as durable as paint. If you dampen a rag to wipe crayon off the wall, the plaster rubs off with it. Apply only after your children have outgrown the need to color your walls.

Overall, I’d recommend the Porcelina plaster by American Clay as a good substitute for conventional paint. You can order a kit of samples to try out from the company website, and find someone who sells it, too. The finish is beautiful, and, if you have the time and inclination to do it yourself, application seems fun. And if you're building a new home in Taos, you need to hire a starving local artisan to apply this for you - your street cred depends upon it.