Dried flowers can offer such incredible beauty during the darker winter months, and provide a hint of sparkle and joy in dark corners and cosy nooks. They also offer a way to decorate our homes that has minimal impact on the environment. This project is all natural, aside from a small amount of wire and golden twine, and can be saved year after year; packed safely away in a cardboard box away from sunlight, heat and moisture, to be brought out again the following year.
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Setting the table is my favourite task at Christmas – I put as much effort into creating this as I do cooking the main meal. I love a bit of sparkle more than heavy greenery, and the brass leaves in the overhanging display add that hint of magic to the scene. An overhead display ensures there is lots of room on the table for the food and gifts. Fluffy seedheads fill the table alongside candles that set off all the botanicals. In this display, I have used my own ‘frog’ pins made from pottery, but you could use Kenzan frog pins or even small glass vessels instead.
You will need
- A metal ring in a diameter of your choice and to fit your table (the one shown here is 40cm)
- Twisted hazel (Corylus avellana) branches or any gnarly branch
- Thin gauge wire
- Peeled honesty (Lunaria annua)
- String to hang the metal ring
- A hook or command hook from which to hang the table centre
- Ethereal seedheads. I’ve used Clematis ‘Bill MacKenzie’, but any clematis will work.
- Bunny’s tail (Lagurus ovatus), pennycress (Thlaspi arvense) or nipplewort (Lapsana communis) would all do just as well.
- Brass leaves (these are from ALBA Jewellery)
How to make
- To begin, use the wire to carefully attach your branches to the circular metal wreath base. I cut lengths of the wire and attach the branches intermittently along the wreath base, ensuring that they are very securely in place.
- Once the branches are in place, take small stems of honesty (breaking the larger branches down into smaller segments) and attach these small stems to the outer ends of the hazel branches, using more of the thin gauge wire. You will find natural spaces to add these honesty stems too, mimicking the way a plant would grow and flower in nature.
- This is visually all about the negative space. We don’t want to overload the branches with honesty; just the odd stem here or there to provide sparkle and interest all over.
- Once the honesty is all in place, hang the structure from a hook that sits centrally over the table. The brass leaves can now be hung in position using the thin wire that accompanies them. Loop them over the stems of the twisted hazel at various positions through and around the circular structure.
- Now to lay the table. I have focused very much on neutrals here, using soft linens and handmade pottery. In among the place settings and glasses, I have dotted beeswax candles and flower frogs filled with seedheads gathered from the garden over the summer.
Discover more Christmas inspiration from Gardens Illustrated