This year, Marty and I decided to inject some creativity and originality into our usual Christmas and holiday decorations, and I am so happy we did. I had been playing around with a few ideas since the summer, but it wasn’t until the fall when something finally clicked.
A beautiful oversized ceramic urn full of winter greenery, rows of soft fairy lights, red and white poinsettias, and sweet potato vines caught my eye during a recent trip to Niagara Falls and I knew I wanted to recreate this look for my home garden this holiday season. However, I soon realized I couldn’t afford the $1000 price tag needed just to buy the urn. So, I set out to build a similar garden centerpiece but for a much lower cost.
First, I figured out the dimensions of the project and what materials I would need:
- An extra-large hula hoop or small balloon wedding hoop
- Garland
- Dogwood twigs
- Assorted winter berries
- Fairy lights
- Assorted holiday craft decorations
- A large plastic plant container
- Plant Styrofoam
That was the easy part. I already had everything I needed at home except for the small wedding balloon hoop which I bought from Amazon. The tricky part was deciding what I was going to use as the base for an arrangement which would be almost 5 feet wide.
That was when my DH got involved.
Marty has always been handy building beautiful tables, chairs, shadow boxes, etc., from reclaimed wood and wood pallets. So, we put our heads together and came up with a design for a wood base which could be made from scrap wood and pallet from our garage. It took Marty about half a day to build not only the lovely, tapered base, but also the platform piece which would support the decorative greenery and balloon hoop and house the plant container and Styrofoam.
Here’s what it looked like:
Once that was completed, all that was needed was to add fairy lights around the hoop and the rest of the decorations.
Here’s the order for how I did this:
- Two rows of soft fairy lights around the hoop.
- Three rows of high-quality holiday garland around the base of the hoop. This is important. At first, I tried to use thinner garland strands, but it made the centerpiece look artificial and garish. Instead, using lush garland/wreathes (or real greenery if you plan to replace every year) made all the difference. The garland base will anchor your centerpiece and provide a gorgeous natural green contrast for the red decorative twigs and berries.
- Assorted holiday ornaments, ribbons, and dried fruit pieces were added to the garland to add splashes of color and more fullness.
- Plant Styrofoam was added to the plastic plant container.
- Brilliant red Dogwood twigs, winterberries, holly, etc. were arranged and secured in the plant container. These added vertical interest to the centerpiece and served as the focal point for the arrangement.
- Another row of fairy lights was added to the garland to create even more holiday magic.
Here’s what the finished project looks like:
In the end, I was very pleased with how the centerpiece turned out. Already, several neighbors and passersby have come over to take a closer look at the arrangement and complement its color and originality. I wanted my outdoor centerpiece to have a festive but natural look. However, you can easily reproduce this with whatever materials you have at home and personalize it in size and your own unique style.
Happy holiday decorating!
