How to Make a Thanksgiving Basket

You don't need to spend a fortune on a Thanksgiving table centerpiece. Almost everything you need to create your own masterpiece is right outside your door. Here we will create a Thanksgiving basket centerpiece - just a quick trip to the grocery store will provide nuts, gourds, pumpkins or other produce to give your masterpiece color and interest.

Things You'll Need

• Bamboo Skewers
• Dried Wheat Sheaves
• Hosiery
• Oasis Floral Foam
• Garden Shears
• Votive Candleholders
• Votive Candles
• Wicker Baskets
• Nuts
• Vegetables

Instructions

1. 

   Line a basket with plastic sheeting and set a clean cottage cheese container or other recycled wide-mouth receptacle in the center. Stuff newspaper around the outside of the container so it won't move inside the basket.

2. Soak 1/4 block of Oasis floral foam in water until it sinks. Place the saturated foam into the container so that at least 1 inch is above the rim.

3. Cut a shopping bag's worth of assorted foliage from your garden. Some suggestions are ferns, pittosporum, rose hips, grasses, variegated anything, and wide leaves such as aspidistra or flax.

4. 

   Rinse the greenery in a bucket so that you don't have any unwanted dinner guests such as spiders or slugs. Lay the foliage on newspaper for an hour or two to dry.

5. Begin your arrangement by making what is called the collar. The collar will hide the mechanical part of your arrangement - in this case the Oasis-filled cottage cheese container and the newspaper filler.

6. 

   Place the foliage - stem end first - into the Oasis foam around the rim of the container. This foliage should cover the edge of the basket.

7. Select a 12-inch piece of foliage and place it in the center of the foam. Continue adding a variety of foliage until the foam is almost full.

8. 

   Impale gourds or small pumpkins on bamboo skewers to use in place of flowers. The interesting shapes and colors will draw comments.

9. 

   Include nuts in your arrangement if you wish. Wrap walnuts tightly in pieces of pantyhose (this will be almost invisible when tied across the nuts), then secure with number-24 floral wire (also called paddle wire). Wrap the wire onto short bamboo skewers or toothpicks and insert into the foam.

10. Use two skewers to better support the fruit in the foam if it is heavy.

11. 

    Set on your table as a centerpiece and enjoy!

Tips & Warnings

• Use your imagination. Select small produce such as green beans, artichokes and miniature pomegranates to add to your centerpiece. Anything with a tough, waxy surface will last a few days without refrigeration. Dried wheat stalks add texture and highlight dark areas.

• Select mature greenery; new growth tends to wilt.

• Mist the arrangement to keep it looking fresh.

• Homegrown arrangements make wonderful hostess gifts.

• Place a votive candle in a holder in the center of the arrangement to provide romantic illumination.

• Never leave a candle burning untended.