How to Make an Evergreen Holiday Centerpiece

You don't need to spend a fortune on a holiday table centerpiece. Everything you need to create your own masterpiece is right outside your door - well, almost. A quick trip to the grocery store will provide colorful chili peppers, nuts or fruits to give your creation color and interest.

Things You'll Need

• Bamboo Skewers
• Christmas Tree Ornaments
• Oasis Floral Foam
• Assorted Greenery
• Baskets
• Garden Shears
• Plastic Sheeting
• Red Chile Peppers
• Newspaper
• Buckets

Instructions

1. Select a container - anything will do as long as it holds water. (Usually table centerpiece arrangements are low enough to see over, but you can break the rules if you don't wish to talk to the person across the table from you...) Or line a basket with plastic sheeting and set a clean cottage cheese container or other recycled wide-mouth receptacle in the center. You can stuff newspaper around the outside of the container so that 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 full of assorted greenery from your garden. Some suggestions are holly, juniper, dusty miller, redwood, pine, podocarpus (fern pine), variegated anything, and wide leaves such as aspidistra or flax.

4. Wash the greenery in a bucket so that you don't have any unwanted dinner guests such as spiders or slugs. Dry the greens on newspaper for an hour or two.

5. 

   Begin your arrangement by making what's called the "collar." (The collar will hide the mechanical part of your arrangement - in this case, the cottage cheese container and the newspaper filler.) Place greens, stem end first, into the Oasis around the rim of the foam-filled container. This foliage should cover the edge of the container.

6. 

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

7. 

   Impale red chili peppers on bamboo skewers and use them in place of flowers. The bright red color will draw interest and comment. Glass ball ornaments can be placed into the arrangement to reflect light and also add interest.

8. Set your centerpiece on your dining room table for guests to enjoy.

Tips & Warnings

• Use your imagination - choose greens you may have overlooked in the past.

• Select mature greenery, since new growth may have the tendency to wilt.

• Mist the arrangement to keep it fresh.

• Homegrown arrangements make wonderful host or hostess gifts.

• Place a votive candle in a holder in the center of the arrangement.

• Never leave a candle burning unattended.