Three Easter Wheat Grass Centerpieces and an Update

On the day of our dinner, I quickly snapped some pictures with a few Easter eggs placed in the wheat grass to show you a few ideas for Easter centerpieces.

This is a piece of the wheat grass that was grown on a paper towel.  The grass in the pictures is taller than I would have preferred it to be to add eggs.  I think that the height after growing the grass for 6 or 7 days would have been a better height. (This was day 11.)

Hindsight, I should have added a wide ribbon around the center of the grass in the milk glass dish to pull it up straight, oh well, next time! :)

This little box is 6" long.  The ends of the box are the tops of the fence slats that were leftover from when I made the large boxes.  I think I want to paint one (of the four small boxes I made) white and distress it for an Easter basket centerpiece with wheat grass and eggs, maybe even add a stencil.

Update

Some of you have wondered how long the grass will last.  This is only the second time that I've grown it, so I can only tell you from my limited experience.  The first grass that I grew looked really bad by day twenty.  It was brown and limp and looked awful.  (I only kept it this long because I kept forgetting to take a picture so I could show you.)

Now I believe that I over-watered it.  Once the wheat grass is established, it really doesn't take very much water to maintain it (depending on your climate and house temperature).  On this second round, at day eighteen, the wheat grass started to look pretty unruly.  You can see the base was turning yellow, it was beginning to fall over at the ends of the box, and the tips of the grass were turning brown.  (I had already trimmed it with scissors multiple times at this point.)  I thought it was a goner again, but decided to trim it up one more time, but shorter than I had been trimming it before, pluck the grass that was sticking out of the sides, and see how it did.

As you can see, it made a big difference!  I think the key might be to keep it trimmed short.  I still don't think that it will last too many more days, guess we'll see! 

Here's a side by side look of the before and after.  I'm keeping track and will add an update to this post to let you know how long I can keep the grass green this time.  The challenge is on!

Update:  Well, the grass varied some on how long it lasted.  From my experience it lasted around 3 weeks, give or take a few days from when I planted it.   At the end of that time it was looking old.  I think because it's so easy to plant and grows so fast, if you want grass for an extended period of time, replant it.  Maybe even stagger it so you constantly have grass that looks nice. 

Are any of you growing wheat grass for Easter this year?  Do you have any fun ideas you're trying for centerpieces?

I just realized that Friday marked 1 1/2 years to the day of when I made this blog public.  It's so hard to believe it's been that long!  Thanks so very much for reading, for supporting me, and for making this such a fun experience! 

Today's Fabulous Finds... Simple Easter (Wheat Grass) Centerpieces 

Linking up to my favorite parties!

Under the Table and Dreaming

Today's Creative Blog

Not Just A Housewife

Table Decor on a Dime: Relief Society Dinner

One of our favorite ways to decorate the tables for our Relief Society dinners is with inexpensive runners.  Sometimes we buy colored plastic table cloths from the dollar store and cut them in four lengthwise strips.   This time I found some pretty brown wrapping paper (the color of the burlap runner that I liked) at the dollar store.  I unrolled the paper and used a rotary cutter and mat to cut it straight down the center.  The total cost: $5 (for 9 large tables and 2 small tables).  We put it over white table paper (not sure if that's what it's really called).  The wrapping paper was also used to make stitched envelopes for the invitations.

Keeping with the wheat theme (wheat is on the Relief Society logo and is a part of it's history), I filled mini pails with wheat to give as favors so they could go home and grow wheat grass of their own.  You can find the pails at Dollar Tree in the wedding section.  They were three for a dollar and included the white ribbon--a really good deal!   Each pail held 1/3 cup of wheat.  (You can buy the wheat at Winco in the bulk food bin section.)

The little craft bags are from JoAnns and were $1.50 for 100 bags.  These bags are a great size for favors!  I want to go back and buy more so I can have them on hand to fill with candy, add a printable topper, and then use any time I need a little treat for something.

I made the flowers with a shape from the Silhouette online store.  The three layers of petals are stapled together in the center.  I covered the staple with a circle of green vinyl (cut with my Silhouette).  The flowers are attached to the pail with blue Fun-tac.  Sticky dots would have worked really well too.

Last minute I made up some directions to hand out on how to grow the wheat grass.  If you'd like to print it, I've uploaded it to Google Docs here.  I'm in no way an expert on growing wheat grass, but this might help you get started.

As a little thank you, I filled a few of the buckets with M&M's  for the girls who helped watch the young children during our activity.  I think I'll make up more of them for Easter treats too!

For each of the tables I used Wordle to make up photo cards with each of the ladies names in our Relief Society on them as well as our theme  (Learning and Growing Together), placed them back to back, and then clipped clothespins onto them to stand them up.  This clever idea was found at  Foutch Coutch.

The cake was purchased, leaving us with one less thing to worry about making!

We served Hawaiian Haystacks, fruit kabobs, and of course the chocolate cake.  It was all delicious!  I wanted to take a picture to show you how the color of the food stood out against the colors on the table, but I didn't have the guts to whip out my camera in the middle of dinner and take a picture of my plate, I seriously thought about it though! :)  You can kind of see the bright colors in this picture.  The blank spot on the table was where the crock pots of chicken gravy were placed.

What you see in the background is the set-up for the wacky game that we made up and played called "Whose Game Is It Anyway?".  I might just tell you about that too, it was a hoot!

Here's another look at the wheat grass.  I wanted it to look natural with the daisies and had planned it all out so it would be the perfect height for the dinner (read about the practice run here), then last minute it was necessary to push the date back two days. Wheat grass can grow pretty tall in just 2 days.  With a little trimming though, I managed to keep the growth under control while maintaining a natural look.  Even though it was taller than I imagined it would be, we could still easily see over the top of it and I don't think there's such a thing as too much green.  Am I right?

By growing our own wheat grass, making the planter boxes, and shopping at dollar stores, we were able to reach our goal of creating a space where we felt like we stepped right into Spring for the night.  It was really wonderful!

Are you getting sick of hearing about wheat grass yet?  I've got a couple more ideas to share, so if your over wheat grass, hang in there, I'll be moving on to other things soon. :)

Wheat grass centerpieces, and growing wheat grass on a paper towel.

How to grow wheat grass and make a planter box from a cedar fence slat.

Today's Fabulous Find...Dollar Store Table Decor

Linking up to:  Lil' Luna  Creations By Kara

Wheat Grass Centerpieces (Grown on Paper Towels)

Do you remember that I told you I was growing wheat grass for centerpieces to use at a dinner for the ladies at my church?  (We celebrate the organization of The Relief Society every March.)  My living room table was completely covered with grass for 11 days!  It was pretty much like having a small lawn in the living room!

The flowers are from the dollar store ($6 total).  Real flowers would have been wonderful, but didn't fit in our budget.  I'll tell you more about the small boxes in another post.  The grass in this picture was grown in soil.

The grass pictured below was grown on nothing more than 4 layers of wet paper towels. Pretty amazing right?   I learned how to grow it at K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Sister).  She also put together some very pretty centerpieces with wheat grass and tea cups.

Originally I was planning on putting it on a piece of Styrofoam and putting our fruit kabobs in it, but that didn't pan out, so we (me and two other friends on the committee) changed plans last minute and came up with a couple of alternative ideas.

Our first idea was to fill a plant stand with grass to hold a card with our theme for the night.  I used my trusty pair of cheapo scissors and cut through the grass roots, using a paper plate as my guide.  We cut the plate down to the right size and then flipped it over so the grass would curve the right direction (otherwise it just bunches together in the center).

The next idea was to use the leftover grass and put it in glass dishes.  We used an upside down dessert plate with an upside down paper plate on top of it (trimmed to fit) to hold it up in the dish.  The scrap pieces of grass were used to fill in the edges as needed and then we finished it off with a strip of burlap. (Please ignore the condition of the cookie sheet.  I use it for crafts, etc. and haven't baked anything on it in years--promise!)

It's hard to believe that we made all three displays from just one small cookie sheet of grass!  It worked out perfectly!

We displayed a few fruit kabobs in cups that were filled with dirt (to hold the weight of the skewer) for presentation.  I found the idea to display the fruit kabobs in grass here.

There is much more that I want to show you, but I'll save it for another post.  Here's a little peek though at how everything came together.

I can't wait to show you the rest!  You can link to my tutorial on how to grow wheat grass and build the planter boxes here.

Today's Fabulous Find...Growing Wheat Grass on a Paper Towel