Making Centerpieces

With October comes our yearly forestry banquet for Clackamas County Farm Forestry Association. This is the same award banquet at which we received the title of "Small Woodland Owner of the Year" back in 2012.

The Farmboy has been serving on the board for almost a year now, so when the subject of centerpieces for the tables came up, he naturally came to me for ideas. And could I just leave well enough alone, offer my ideas, and let the guys do the work? Of course not! Instead, I almost single-handedly took the project on. I enjoyed it, but it took way more time than I expected, so you can believe me when I say that next year I will be delegating and/or forming a committee.

Ingredients: assorted plastic and wood lanterns with battery-operated candle lights (found at Craft Warehouse), large tree "cookies" freshly cut by a fellow board member who happens to run a firewood company, assorted fresh leaves, twigs, and branches foraged on our property, florist wire, wire cutters, and this fabulous base wire for forming the wreaths.

I didn't take pictures of the process, because I really needed four hands for assembling the wreaths, so the two that God gave me were way too full to also add in a camera. I basically layered bunches of Cedar, Douglas Fir, Holly, and Pin Oak over the wire, wrapping with the florist wire as I went along, and twisting the base wire ends together to hold a loose circle.

Some of them turned out a bit wonky, but everyone seemed to like them, and those that won their table drawing and got to take a centerpiece home seemed very happy.