Well the birthday party was a blast!  We celebrated three of my friends 30th birthdays at a cantina style restaurant.  My manzanita centerpieces were a big hit.  I would have done a couple of things different but I thought they turned out well for a first attempt.  I will definitely be using them again.  They are so versatile. 

Thank you to everyone for your interest and creative ideas for the centerpieces.  You all were a big help and I love hearing your ideas.  Hope you enjoy the pics. 

My First Manzanita Centerpieces

I had to work around orange tablecloths!  I thought they looked ok with the bright green moss. 

 

My sweet brother-in-laws cut the 30s out of metal and we spray painted them black.

 

I ordered the branches and containers from Blooms and Branches.  I ordered 24" natural and spray painted them white.  I was going to go with sandblasted but I read that the blasting causes a lot of the little branches to break off so it's better to order natural and paint them. The trick to spray painting them is primer!  I used one branch per pot.

I thought they were a good height.  The crystals were from Save on Crafts.

 

I bought the green moss at Pottery Barn.  I also scattered some "crystals" I purchased at Michael's through the moss.

This next photo is a little blurry but I love how the crystals are glowing.

 

Luckily the room was already fabulously decorated with natural branches with white twinkle lights and white lanterns hung sporadically.

 

Check out these little beauties my friend Nicole made. 

 

More on these later…

Big thank you to my husband for all of his help!  Mixing plaster=no fun.  Here is a tutorial on how to set your branches in a container.

If you'd like to see more pics please check out my Facebook page.  If you have any photos of manzanita centerpieces you've made I'd love to see them!  Just upload them to the album or shoot me an email.

I hope these give you some ideas for the next time you need a one of a kind centerpiece!  They were fun to make and you can really express yourself with them.  All in all they were not that expensive to make either.