Required Reading: Bring the Outdoors In

It’s easy, really, to make a garland of dried flowers or to arrange wispy cuttings of ivy in simple glass vessels to create drama indoors with natural elements from the garden. Or at least that’s the opinion of Brooklyn designer Shane Powers, whose new gardening book Bring the Outdoors In features photos that make the arrangements all seem simple, perhaps inevitable:

Photographs via Bring the Outdoors In.

Above: Powers offers step-by-step DIY instructions for 20 projects featuring both live and dried plants.

Above: Bring the Outdoors In is $24.95 from Terrain.

Above: “he projects are not gardening projects per se; they are three-dimensional still lifes,” writes Powers.

Above: The projects use a variety of flowers, succulents, branches, and cuttings. “Keep the palette and shapes simple and subtle,” Powers suggests.

N.B.: Looking for more DIY ideas to bring nature indoors? See our favorite idea at “DIY: Bottle-Fed Paperwhites.”