Now you have sorted out the guts of your wedding centerpieces, it is time to decide on what to put them in.
Note: Store this jar in a cool, dark place for up to 3 months before using.
- contents of this jar
- 3/4 cup (175 ml) butter or margarine, softened
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
� bubble bowls (�fish bowls�), ivy bowls, hurricane lamps� berry sprays/garlandsIf you find yourself staring at your beautiful wedding centerpieces & wondering what is missing, then it could be that the addition of a simple wrapper is all that is required.� silver mint julep cupsThis is the important part. You have your guts, you have your containers, now how do you marry the two together? The way in which you do this will say as much about your style as your choice of guts in the first place. Again, here are some popular treatments for you to pick from.� clear glass cylindersOatmeal Raisin Spice CookiesDespommier was walking his class through the ways in which the world is collapsing. By 2050, the world is expected to be occupied by 9.2 billion people. It will be hotter and harder to farm. Diseases caused by pathogens will once again be a key problem, not just for developing countries but for the whole world. And all of these issues will coexist with our modern problems that seem to be getting worse rather than better: obesity, immune disorders, social discontent, and the extinction of thousands, maybe millions, of species. "Feeding this future world and keeping it healthy is beyond current abilities," he would tell his students. By 2050, with current farming practices, "we will need an area of additional agricultural land the size of South America. It just does not exist! Not on Earth!" Despommier said this, all of which is true to the extent that it is knowable, and the students started complaining. They were sick of hearing about doom and gloom, sick of hearing about how the world into which they were maturing was falling apart.� gift boxes, hat boxesLayer the dry ingredients in the order listed above, alternating light and dark-colored ingredients for that "art" effect. Your recipient supplies the moist ingredients, and you can attach your favorite recipe or the Oatmeal Raisin Spice Cookies in a Jar recipe, printed on fancy paper (such as the kind you'd find inexpensively at Kinko's) with a decorative font from your computer, and tied to the jar with pretty ribbon or raffia (inexpensive at craft and sewing shops). Cover the top of the jar with a circle of pretty fabric--- maybe from a tablecloth, curtains or a dress that's headed for the rag bag.� square vases, square bowlsWhat do you need to make "Gifts in a Jar"? Let's take, for example, the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies: flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and baking soda, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oatmeal and raisins. All of these are available for under $5 at your local grocery store. If you buy in bulk, you'll save more time and money-- -just make sure to create your "Gifts in a Jar" as soon as possible before you plan on giving them. The ingredients have a shelf life of 3 months in most cases, so use fresh ingredients.It's a safe bet that the Three Kings didn't buy the gold, frankincense and myrrh given to Jesus Christ in the manger from Macy's or Pottery Barn.� block of floral foam wrapped in sword grass or hosta leaves (placed in square jars)� bear grass� flowers, wired to topiariesThe Treatments� roses, orchids, gerbers: submerged plus underwater lighting� photo cubesYour thoughtful, personal gift will delight everyone on your list and save you money when you make "Gifts in a Jar." Besides, you'll no doubt get invited to eat the cookies---when was the last time a sweater from Macy's gave you that kind of sweet rewards?The Containers� colored water, underwater lightingYou are perhaps looking at your glass containers & thinking they look too bare, but add in a piece of pretty satin ribbon, tied around the vase & knotted in place, & Voila! Perfection is reached! Here are some other ideas for snappy container wrappers.But Despommier, still with a bit of realism's doom in his heart, asked the students to do the math and figure out how many of the million and a half people in Manhattan could actually be fed through green rooftop gardening. The answer was humbling. It was a meager 2.5 percent--an organic mango when what was needed was miles of grains.Whether gardens on roofs could actually prove useful at a scale that mattered to humans was a separate issue, however. No one had really "gone big" when it came to green rooftops. No one was seriously advocating for whole cities of green roofs. Perhaps, the students began to think, it was just that no one knew how valuable they might be in remedying pollution and producing crops. So they decided they would figure out how significant a role such rooftops might play if they really caught on.� marabou feather boasThis year you, too, can give frankincense and myrrh of the tasty kind. The best part is, the ingredients come from your neighborhood grocery store or even your own kitchen. The Three Kings used ornate containers, but you can make do with an inexpensive 1-quart mason jar to hold your "sand art" cookies, or "Gifts in a Jar."� de-stemmed single flower heads floating in water: gerbers, roses, peoniesDespommier had been sidelined by the birth of the field of genomics, a particular kind of industrialized genetics; with it came a decline in the study of how species actually live and work in the world. Up until that point in his career, Despommier had not really thrown himself into teaching, but now, with time and energy (and no money) on his hands, he began to focus on the minds of the graduate students at Columbia University. He began to teach two classes, Ecology 101 and an environmental health course called Medical Ecology. It was while teaching Medical Ecology that his life began to change.� wooden crates� vegetables (gourds, succulents): submerged� blooms arranged into pomanders or spheresThen Despommier asked a new question. What if we turned whole buildings into farms? What if we used hydroponics and made abandoned buildings into a new kind of living habitat and grew vertical farms, up walls or even inside walls, in the way that forests grow vertically? Until this point, Despommier had played a passive role in the students' endeavors. If the National Science Foundation had funded him at that point, he might even have abandoned his class midstream. It did not, and so he kept teaching the class, more involved at each stage. He looked up at the buildings around him in Manhattan. They were filled with human bodies and the species that lived off of them--worms, mites, bacteria, and flies--but the buildings did not give back, not life, anyway. They just took. Each day, thousands of pounds of food and millions of gallons of water were shipped and carried up elevators, staircases, and pipes, and near-equal amounts of waste were dispatched down toilets. Each building sucked the juices out of the land outside the city, sucked at the land around the world.Snappy Container WrappersYou may have noticed from your initial research, that some designers will add extra elements to the containers themselves. You will probably have seen glass vases lined with wheat grass or perhaps a layer of pretty crystal stones. Water it would seem is not sufficient & you have to add an extra bit of wow with some killer filler! Take a look at these for inspiration.� bark strips� gel beadsSift together flour, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, baking soda and salt, then place in the bottom of a 1-quart (1 l) glass mason jar. Tamp down the flour mixture so it is packed in firmly. Add the rest of the ingredients in the order given, making sure to pack down each layer firmly before adding the next. Screw the lid on the jar. Attach the following directions:Oatmeal Raisin Spice Cookies in a Jar
- 1 cup (250 ml) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) salt
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (175 ml) dark brown sugar, firmly packed
- 2 cups (500 ml) quick cooking oatmeal
- 3/4 cup (175 ml) raisins
� raffiaPre-heat oven to 350�F (175�C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Empty the jar of cookie mix into a large mixing bowl, blend the mixture thoroughly. Stir in butter or margarine, egg, and vanilla. Mix until completely blended. Shape into balls the size of walnuts. Place 2 inches (5 cm) apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Let cool for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 weeks. Makes 36 cookies.When it comes to containers, there is a wide choice available to you. Be creative & think outside of the box, particularly if want something different or quirky. Stick with plain & simple for a modern, contemporary look or choose something elegant & luxurious for a traditional & stately feel. Here is a list of some of the most popular choices.Killer Container FillersTheir first step was to travel to a basement--the map room of the New York Public Library--to research the surface area of the rooftops of Manhattan. The answer seemed as though it was a whole lot. They were not just finding roofs--there were also balconies, abandoned lots, and old railway lines. The city, for all its modernity, was filled with layers and levels of dirt, and so too the possibility of layers and levels of life.To turn your favorite cookie recipe into "Gifts in a Jar," just make sure the total of dry ingredients is 1 quart (1 l) or less. You may have to cut your current recipe by half or one third to get the correct amount of dry ingredients but it will work. Remember to adjust the amounts of wet ingredients needed when writing out your directions to place on the jar. Or, rather than cutting your recipe, you can use the larger 2-quart (2 l)
mason jars, and if there is any space left at the top of the jar, pack it tightly with tissue paper or add a few extra raisins and a sprinkle of oatmeal--this adds pizzazz!
Next: Read The Building Blocks of Fabulous Centerpieces Part 3.
Author: Georgina Clatworthy
No comments:
Post a Comment