The Gardens
At Storybook Glen
Home of Everlasting Life Decor

Cupped and crinkled leaves, curling grasses, twisting vines, bright berries, flowers, foliage, and seed pods. They are all fascinating, and if preserved and put together right, can make a long lasting work of art that gives immense satisfaction in the viewing. Line and texture, color and accents, focal points, style, shape, material. There are so many variables.

Storybook Glen
Everlasting Life is located at Storybook Glen; 170 acres of forest, field, and gardens in the Boston Mountains of the northwest Arkansas Ozarks. The carpenters who built our family home dubbed it a "storybook house." As our family grew and expanded, most becoming self employed, we realized we needed a name to cover home base. We remembered the carpenters, and "Storybook Glen" we became. If you call our toll free number, you will be greeted with that location name.

Everlasting Life Decor
Everlasting Life Decor is basically a one woman operation. Yes, the name does carry a double meaning. It reflects both what I grow and offer to my customers (dried flower arrangements made from everlastings), and my own personal religious belief that a beautiful life goes on even after death. Nature bears witness to it,at least in the plant kingdom. My art is a reflection of and inspired by nature.


The Gardens
The Gardens from which I do my cutting are open to the public (reservations required). They are not only practical but also beautiful. Of course many things are harvested early to be made into arrangements, but the gardens were constructed with the viewing public in mind too.They have been developed by the whole family. I plan them and do all of the cutting and much of the maintainence, but any expansion has been a family team effort.

The ground, being steep, has been terraced in levels using native stone, much of it huge. We felt kin to the ancient Egyptians when we used tractor, come-alongs, pry bars, chains, and brute strength from my four young men to place the boulders. Even the walkways are made from large flat rocks. The effect against the rock and cypress-faced house is truely something to see. Some day the grounds will have cabins for overnight guests with a program designed to relax and entertain our visitors with the pleasures of simple country life.

One Woman Operation
I grow most of my material myself, cutting and preserving it in a number of ways. The simplest is to let it dry while on the plant. But most are cut, then hung in my specially modified attic to air dry there. Some are silica dried and a few others are glycerin preserved. I also press one or two for special effects. There is quite a science to all of this which accounts for all my books, I suppose, but still I learn through my own experimentation and from trial and error.

No Mass Production Work
I used to think a day would come when I would have it all down pat, but I know better now. Learning it never quits. And so my art will never quit changing.That's one reason my arrangements are all different. But the other is me. I don't like repetition. Don't get me wrong. I can do a matched set. I just can't do mass production, like the ones you buy from catalogs or department stores. I understand their problem. They have to turn out high volume, and so turn to the unskilled, giving a formula of instructions and hoping for the best. But I just won't do slap-dash, fast, blobby, polka-dotted, arrangements over and over again. I can't. I think it would somehow kill me.

Custom Creations
My customers who order my present offerings, although nameless and faceless, are getting custom work. I don't only build what I like. I imagine a certain type of person and then build for him or her. Dignified, reckless, stunning, outrageous, flamboyant, subdued. I build for the person in my mind. If you order a custom arrangement I will ask questions and try to get a true picture of you in my mind to help me build the arrangement you want.

From Me to You
So if you, in browsing this site, find an arrangement you like, I will be delighted. I will have served you in the making of it. You will give identity to my faceless customer, and in a small way, we will connect. That will please me and I hope you too.

If for any reason you are not satisfied, with a dried flower arrangement from Everlasting Life Decor, simply return it for a full refund or replacement. I want you to be satisfied you have the finest of handmade dried flower wreaths and swags.