Holiday Centerpieces-Mixed Greenery Centerpiece

Suzanne Taylor: My name is Suzanne Taylor of Artistic Gardens, Flower Shop and Greenhouse of St. Johnsbury, Vermont. We are talking about Christmas center pieces and I am going to be showing you how to do a vase with various assorted Christmas greeneries and a nice pretty bow.

We will need some ribbon, some variegated holly. We're going to use some seeded eucalyptus, some juniper, and some white pine, and a glass vase. So to get started, we're going to start first of all with the seeded eucalyptus because it's a nice bushy branch. I'll give it a cut with the snip and then I can insert it. I want it to go down and that's going to kind of anchor everything along with the holly. Anything that's going to be below of the water level you want to take off. These can be used in other arrangements later. We'll just cut that off and that goes in the vase and then we have another piece here. Same thing again. It's very prickly but you want to take off anything that's going to be below the water. Give it a nice cut so they can take up water and it's going to also go in the vase.

If you kind of crisscross as you go, you'll find that it stays in there better. I have got some berry juniper, it doesn't have berries, this one. Take off anything below the water once again. These little pieces, don't throw them away though, be sure to save them for other craft projects. Good slice with my snip, put it right in the center. See now it's starting to hold itself.

We've got another one here. Now I am going to put some white pine in there. This one doesn't have too many long needles. Just snip off anything below the water line, insert it. White pine gives it a nice glow too. So it's very graceful. I am just using these smaller ones and once again I am taking off the lower that's going to be in the water, like so, sticking it there, okay.

Now we have this ribbon. I am going to make a bow for it. You take it, and kind of gather it together, and just sort of weave it, pinch it in between your fingers as you go. You go keeping the back side up at all times. When you do your center one you're coming this way but you're going to go all the way around and gather it in the center and then again this way.

Then I am going to -- I think I will make some tails. So if you're going to make tails, you make your loop and gather it again. Then you cut it off. I've got another piece here that I am going to tie around the vase. This one, no. This one is long enough, okay. You want to make sure it's going to be long enough to go around the neck. What I do is I start with one, I go around keeping one side very short and the other side longer, then we put it. Now let's get the dove tails from these first. Hold it in half this way and then pinch it together in half that way. Give it a snip and there you've got your two dove tails.

So then what you do? Put it against the vase, you bring it around the back to the front, and then you tie it underneath the ribbon so the back side doesn't have a knot in it. It's right underneath the ribbon and it won't be visible. Then you can fluff your ribbon to make sure it looks good; there.

That's a vase of greens. You can add flowers to it later if you would like. You can change the ribbon and it will last all through the holidays. Very easy and you can use greenery out of your yard or wherever you can get some. The next arrangement we're going to do is going to be a boxwood tray and that makes a great center piece and it's also a good substitution for your Christmas tree if you don't have a lot of space.