How to Make a Green Mum Ball Tablescape

Miniature green mums can act as complementary highlights.

Balls of green chrysanthemums can add a vibrant and whimsical touch to any tablescape -- a creatively designed table arrangement or centerpiece. You can easily create your own mum balls before adding them to your tablescape. Inserting a long wooden dowel into each ball beforehand will allow you to integrate them into the design -- arranging the ball-topped dowels in a vase or a covered polystyrene base. The resulting bouquet of oversized, spherical green "flowers" forms an eye-catching and impressive centerpiece for your tablescape.

Things You'll Need

• Sharp knife
• Floral foam
• Water
• Wooden dowels or skewers, about 10 to 12 inches long
• Green mums
• Floral pins
• Vase
• Assorted other flowers (optional)
• Pale green tablecloth

Instructions

1. Carve the floral foam into spheres ranging in diameter from 4 to 8 inches. As you complete each sphere, place it in a bowl of water to soak.

2. Trim each green mum so that the stem is 1/4 to 1/2 inch long.

3. Insert a dowel into each foam sphere, working with one sphere at a time. Match narrower dowels to smaller spheres and thicker dowels to larger spheres. After inserting the dowel, use floral pins to attach mums to the sphere until they cover its whole surface. The result should look like a ball of petals with a dowel sticking out of it.

4. Stick the ends of the dowels into a vase to arrange the mum balls into an attractive bouquet. If desired, add other flowers to fill in gaps in the arrangement or to create visual variety. Place the vase in the center of a pale green tablecloth and arrange the cloth around the vase in loose folds to create an attractive look.

Tips & Warnings

• Instead of a vase, you can stick the shorter-doweled mums into a block of polystyrene in an attractive basket, covering the polystyrene with craft moss.

• For a more elaborate tablescape, arrange pillar candles and transparent bowls of water with floating blossoms around the vase.