MOPS centerpieces

It's that time of year again- time for our MOPS (Mothers of PreSchoolers) group to start up, and once again, I got to have fun working on the centerpieces. They were really a collaboration of ideas that once put all together, came out to something we're all pretty happy with. We have 6 tables, and each is a different "color"- which is why the centerpieces are the colors they are- to match the table's color theme. This year's theme for MOPS is "where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I with them". Believe it or not, these started as a pencil box with only one side to it (the house shape). I traced another house side out of chipboard to match up on the other side so no matter where you sat at the table, you'd get a nice view of the centerpiece. I put floral foam in the box and we made picture holders ( my favorite part! ) out of 20 gauge stem wire. I bought packages of it at Jo-Ann's for a couple of dollars, I think they had 20 to a package. We used needle nosed pliers to wrap one of the ends of the wire around the pliers 2-3 times- which made that spiral to hold the pictures. We then just gently wrapped the stem wire around our finger once in a couple of places along the wire, making pretty little loops. To coordinate further with the table color, we wired coordinating colored beads on a few of the loops. They turned out so cute, really fun and easy (and FAST!) to make- you could make your own and put in one of those pretty metal tins with floral foam in it and cover the top with shredded paper to hide the foam, and give as a gift- or make for yourself. In our centerpieces, we printed out pictures of the ladies' families to put in the holders for each table. All this from a humble pencil box! Maybe I'll show a little how to with pictures of making the picture holders- I know that I like pictures to go along with written directions.