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.