St. Patrick's Day centerpieces

[bizzeedee]

I know it's early, but I'm going to need to make centerpieces for St. Patrick's Day and am having trouble locating anything that looks cute, classy and cheap. We're alloted $5 each.

Can any one suggest, or point me in the direction of a good web site?

Thanks.

[smachel]

you could get some carnations and put them in green food coloring -- the green will go up through the stem and to the petals. kroger has some flowers that they dye also. i don't know what they're called, but they're pretty cool. i bought some in orange and blue for my students pretty cheap. throw those in some vases and you're set.

along the vase lines, you can always get the stems with metallic stuff (i don't know what else to call them) in green and silver. i'm trying to find a link to show you what i'm talking about. you can get them at a party store or at craft stores.

if you want to go a little more st. paddy's day -- you can get the green plastic derby hats for like 99 cents. you could wrap the bottom in silver or gold garland.

these are some cheap centerpieces using the metallic stuff i was describing earlier only in st. paddy's theme --
http://partyoptions.net/centerpieces/st_patricks
_burst_centerpieces.htm

[Chelsea]

You're probably thinking of alstromeria or mums/pomps. The alstromeria looks kind of like a mini orchid or iris. The pomps are those little daisy looking things (they come in a few different shapes, like mum shaped or pompom shaped). almost any flower can be dyed with food coloring, even white roses.

You could use those little plastic hats upside down to hold the flower arrangement. Just use wet floral foam (it's really easy to do arrangements with that stuff). You can use granny smith apples or pears to help take up some room since flowers can really run up the price. Just poke a stick into the fruit and stick it into the foam to keep it in place.

Go to a craft store and look for anything green, like feathers or a boa. The feathers could be scattered like rose petals, or used in the arrangement to help take up space since with $5 it can be hard to make something that doesn't look too small. Or the boa could be wrapped around the base of the centerpiece to hide an ugly cheap vase :)

Or you could even use some kind of green fabric or paper cut into a shamrock to sit underneath the centerpiece as a base for it. Or a really simple idea is to get a big plastic bowl-like thing - either meant to be a vase or whatever. Fill it halfway with green water and float white flowers in it. Gerbera daisies are really cute as floating flowers, though they can be expensive.

I don't know how much of this is actually possible with the money constraints, I'm just throwing out ideas. If you don't know how to make floral arrangements, they are NOT hard. Michael's website has a tutorial and you can look at some of their ideas for arrangements and centerpieces.

http://www.michaels.com/art/online/displayArtic
le?articleNum=as0091&channelid=5
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[bizzeedee]

Oh goodness... you two smachel & chelsea have given me some wonderful ideas to start with. I was pretty excited about the web site that sells the Shamrock style stems or bursts, and very reasonable priced. I'm making these centerpieces for our March Newcomers Club luncheon and they end being given as door prizes. I have $30 budget and the goal is to have at least 5, so if I went the fresh flower route, there is a little extra there.

This is my first post to this forum and I'm very excited about the quick responses. It looks like it's giong to be a fun place to hang out when time allows.

[mikberly]

I''m also looking for ideas for a centerpiece and I found your post. I really like plants a lot and think they make great centerpieces. You could check out any local grocery stores to see if they sell shamrock plants (which would match perfect with St Patty''s day) They will probably even have the pots wrapped in some sort of metallic green or gold foil. My guess is they would be about $5 each. Depending on what they are for, you can even give them away at the end.

[craftfetish]

I'm guessing the original poster has made her centerpieces by now, but since it is that time of year again...

If you didn't want to go the fresh flower route, you could fill a clearanced out Halloween cauldron with clearanced out gold coins from Christmas/Hanukkah. (Or any gold wrapped candy, I suppose)
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