Tag Archives: holiday decor

Simple Christmas Centre Piece

Christmas centre piece

Christmas centre pieceYou can’t get much simpler (or cheaper) than this arrangement. I thought I might like a nice arrangement for my table during the holidays, but now that it’s done, it may sit on the little table outside on my front porch….haven’t decided.

Materials:

  • glass vase (bought for a couple bucks at the thrift store)
  • silver ribbon with the wire edges for creating a nice shape
  • white curly ribbon
  • 5 to 7 cheap tacky plastic candy canes from the dollar store ( I think they came two or three in a pack) ~ as a rule of thumb, you should always use an odd number when making an arrangement (I am pretty sure about this “rule” because I learned it in 4H when I was 10, so it must be true. However, you can see I broke the rule. I had 6 and they are so tacky that I don’t want to leave the odd ball hanging around, so I stuck it in to make an even six – yikes!!)
  • 3 springs of berries (wire stem that is pliable for easy manipulation ~ got these on clearance for 99 cents each)
  • wire garland (As you know….I love wire garland and use it on all of my gifts. You can see the twisted swirls of silver holly garland in the arrangement)
  • hot glue/gun
  • glass beads (dollar store) to help with the stability of the candy canes (optional)

Building the Arrangement:

I basically started with the candy canes and added from there. I started by putting a little dab of hot glue on the glass jar and tilted the first candy cane to rest against the edge on the gob of glue. The glue is inside the rim and can’t be seen. I decided to glue three candy canes around the rim, each spaced about 1/3 of the circle apart. I am not sure if I will keep the arrangement or dismantle it at the end of the holidays, but hot glue peels off quite easily, so I wasn’t concerned about the vase.  I then took the second set of three candy canes and secured them together with the silver bow (and a few dabs of hot glue). These were more upright and straddled the first set of candy canes nicely to sit more in the middle of the arrangement. I then added the glass beads to help hold the candy cane based in place.

I then began to “fill” the arrangement. I curled several lengths of plain white ribbon and used it as filler, spilling over the top of the glass jar. I didn’t secure any of the ribbon, just poked it in here and there and hooked it around some of the candy canes. I then carefully pulled the tiny sprigs of the wire berries to give them more dimension and a bit of a whimsical look. Finally, I added a few lengths of the wire garland, randomly twisted throughout the arrangement.

*I was thinking that if this were made for outside, you could probably add a bit of water to the jar and the ice would act as the base to hold everything in place, instead of using glass beads.

All in all, this was mostly made up of odds and ends I already had on hand. The candy canes were 2 or 3 dollars and the berries another 3. Not bad for under $10!

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Okay, Not So Simple Rag Wreath: Part 2

In all honesty this project is simple, but time consuming. The tearing and tying took quite a long time and it certainly didn’t help that I spent an extra couple hours driving around trying to find more fabric because I ran short. I think when all is said and done, I probably used about 2 meters of my base off white colour and about .6 meters of the printed fabric (.2 of each).  That’s a lot of fabric. Thank goodness I finally broke down and bought a Fabricland membership in September ~ that has paid for itself already! My wreath is large (18″ ring) and very full, but oh so beautiful. I am so happy with the final product and had so much fun designing the finished look.

Burlap Flowers:

I really wanted an elegant meets rustic look.  I purchased regular burlap in its natural colour as well as an off white shade.

IMG_9041I then googled tutorials for how to make burlap flowers and these are the two I ended up using to make mine. The first video is the tutorial I used to make the main flower for my wreath. I used both colours for this and I found the tutorial pretty easy to follow. I was a bit confused with how to fold the flower with the glued edges touching, but was able to figure it out through trial and a bit of error.

Here is my version of this flower.

rustic burlap flower

The second tutorial I used was from Craftaholics Anonymous. Linda gave a great tutorial that was super easy to follow and the little rose buds literally took no more than a few minutes to make.

I made the bow on the top out of a combination of wire ribbon that I purchased at 90% off last January and a long piece of burlap. I love the natural look of the wire ribbon combined with the texture and colour of the burlap. I added a button to dress it up a bit.

I decided to hot glue a piece of extra “rag” fabric to the back of each flower as well as the bow. It was easy to shove the ends through the wreath between the first and second rings and the third and forth rings. This allowed me to pull the ends through and tie the embellishments on.  I didn’t want to use glue as I was afraid I would ruin it. This also allows me to remove them and change-up the embellishments for a different holiday or look.

IMG_9040

Rag Wreath Reveal:

Here is a shot of the completed wreath before adding the embellishments.
Wreaths: A circle has no beginning and no end and thus the wreath represents the eternal nature of God and the never-ending value of love. An evergreen wreath is a true representation of this eternal love and hope, as it contains both the circle and the evergreen branches.

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