Sweet Gum Branches

For those of you familiar with the Sweet Gum tree, you know that it produces little spike-y balls. My mother gathered a large number in her basket and brought them onto her porch to spray paint them silver and gold for Christmas tree ornaments. More recently, during a tornado, my neighbor's sweet gum tree ended up as a projectile in my yard, crashing through the glass patio louvers and landing on top of my electric lines that run from the pole into the house. I thought the branches were quite wonderful looking and gathered a few for an arrangement.