Romantic Thanksgiving Centerpiece Tutorials

Okay, so it's not a secret, I'm a romantic, no, I'm a hopeless romantic. I love to be surrounded by beauty and romance, especially during the holidays. So I've come up with a couple of romantic Thanksgiving tablescapes, and a couple of romantic centerpieces for inspiration. 

If you like the centerpieces but prefer a different color scheme for your Thanksgiving table, go ahead, this centerpiece would be beautiful with orange or red roses. Imagine yellow sunflowers, mums, or alstromeria instead of gerberas. It would also be just as lovely with orange mini pumpkins, or even other decorative squash. I used a white urn style vase and two urn style pillar candle holders.

 In the pillar candle holders I used white Pumpkin candles because at our house we have Thanksgiving dinner as the sun sets and we love to have candlelight on the table. This has two advantages, the first that I don't have to rush Thanksgiving day to get dinner on early, and two, it's so beautiful to sit down to a candlelit table and listen to Christmas Carols over dinner ( I told you I was hopeless). So use the vase and pillar holders you have, or use this as an excuse to buy some that really touch your soul. 

What your going to need
(I purchased all my flowers at my local grocery store)
One dozen long stem roses- I used a pale pink-peach
One bunch of Gerbera Daisies, sunflowers, alstromeria, or mums 
One bunch of Gypsopholia (babies breath)
5-6 mini pumpkins

One medium size vase
1/2 block fresh floral foam (trim this to fit tightly into your vase, you want it to feel wedged in). Floral foam is easily trimmed with a knife.
5-6 bamboo skewers
One yard of ribbon- I used a 1 inch organdy pale yellow

2 pillar candle holders
2 pumpkin shaped candles that will fit in the pillar candle holder or
2 small pumpkins or decorative squash
Make sure you completely soak your floral foam and place floral preservative in the water surrounding the foam.

Tuck in short, about 3 inch, sprigs of gypsopholia around the pumpkin base until you get the desired effect. That's it, your done! I just loved how these turned out, how about you?

For the floral Centerpiece poke 3 inch sprigs around the entire edge of the vase, into the foam,  until you can no longer see the floral foam. You don't have to do this in the center since other flowers will be going there. 

Poke the pointy end of the bamboo skewer into the bottom of the mini pumpkin and trim the skewer to 6 inches. Place the pumpkins evenly into the outside of the foam, gently tucked into the gypsopholia.

Trim the Gerbera daisies so that they sit at a comfortable height above the pumpkins. You don't want the pumpkins to get hidden under the daisies. Your going to place the daisies inside of the gypsopholia, but not in the center of the foam (that's reserved for the roses). If you wanted, you could actually stop here and you would have a perfectly lovely centerpiece, it's all up to you. If you did want to stop here you may want to use some gypsophlia to cover any foam that might be showing though.

Take your roses and arrange them in the palm of dominant hand so that they make a nice pomander shape, the center one will be highest and you will gently place the following ones a little lower until they look like the photo above. Trim the bottom of the stems so they are even, and push them into the center of the wet floral foam. Try to do this as soon as possible after trimming the stems.

After looking at both sides of your arrangement (or all sides if your vase is round or square) decide what will be the front. Wrap the ribbon 3-4 times around the rose stems (this will hold them together) tie a pretty bow on the front and you are finished with this lovely centerpiece. Remember to check it everyday and keep it watered. It should last you a week. Mums and alstromeria will have the longest vase life. If the roses fade first, remove them and enjoy several more days of your arrangement. 

I'll be back in a couple of days to show you the tablescape(s) I made for these centerpieces, so I hope you'll come back and take a gander.  Happy Thanksgiving sweet friends.