. >> reporter: flowers were very important to marjorie merriweather post. >> extremely important.he greenhouse held thousands of orchids and we also grow all the flowers in the cutting garden that we use for the arrangements throughout the house. so that was very much part of what marjorie post wanted her legacy to be. >> reporter: you really need to come and visit in every season. >> indeed you do. >> reporter: we are making our way over to audra kelly the head of interpretation. and one of the things that we learned when we came out here is we came out for pret-a- papier which is the wonderful picture of the paper dresses. is that you guys have a lot of different programs that go along with when you have like an exhibit like that here. >> we do. and we used the paper shoes that isabelle de borchgrave has in the exhibition as inspiration for an art making activity. and i have some examples here of some paper shoes that some staff and visitors have made and they look a lot like the ones you see in the exhibition. >> i always think it's fun now when we make museum exhibits interact

got, which of course is one of hillwood's trademarks, that she -- >> reporter: and one of marjorie merriweatherpost's trademarks, the quintessential hostes. >> so that isabel gave us a dress because she thought it was so perfect at hillwood. >> around marjorie merriweather is smiling as her collection continues to grow. >> she is without question. >> reporter: pret-a-papier is going to be here through december 30 so you have some time of the hillwood is open tuesday through saturday and some select sundays. myfoxdc.com is our website. we have a link to theirs. coming up next hour they put a couple of of the dresses in the mansion and we wanted to see some of the rooms and the faberge eggs and the like but the bulk of the collection is elsewhere. we'll talk about that with the curator in our 8:00 hour. back to you. >> thank you. >>> if you have a sweet tooth, stick around. occasionally cake of old town alexandria is here with details about a back to school event benefitting kids in need. >> and an update regarding hurricane isaac. we'll talk with the director of emergency operations in hancock c