Sunday, February 26, 2012

Black History Month Event Centerpiece

February is coming to a close.  
Can you believe that?!  It's almost March already... Time is flying by...

This past month I had the honor of helping out my friend, Ken, with centerpieces for a Black History Month Luncheon with a guest list of over 200 people with 22 tables.  The budget was tight, but he put together 22 pots with beautiful white petunias.  He then added these funky circles to the center of each arrangement that I made for him.

Materials
Craft Paper (in the color of the African American Flag)
Images of famous people/leaders in Black American History (past and present)
skewers
glue stick
hot glue gun with sticks
scissors
Numbers ( I made mine out of paper with my Silhouette Cameo)
Curling Ribbon

I first researched and compiled a list of 22 famous people, searched and found images on the Internet and printed them on regular printer paper.  I then simply free form cut out the papers layering them to give it a fun and funky look and gluing them together with a glue stick.  I hot glued the skewer to the back and added a table number.  I then finished off each piece with curling ribbon to add a little 'something.'






Ken printed out a copy of the list with the name of each famous person, so that the guests had a source to look up who was the dignitary they were "seated with" for the luncheon.  Obviously people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Condoleezza Rice were easy ones.  But I put a few tougher gets...like Congressman John Lewis's image was back in 1961 when he participated in the Freedom Rider events during the 1960's Civil Rights Movement.   When the guests arrived, they were able to mingle from table to table honoring each amazing Black American.

So many times we spend a ton of time and effort to make centerpieces beautiful or different.  It was nice to add meaningful element that was also somewhat educational.  The guests really appreciated it.  I enjoyed helping out a friend.

-The End-

7 comments:

suzieQ said...

I just recently watched an episode on the Freedom Riders and Mr. Lewis is such a hero who luckily, is still with us and still serving. I teach and try to help my students realize that within MY lifetime, great strides have been made. It boggles my mind that within 59 years such changes had to be made, and many still need to be accomplished. Race relations still need to be attended to.

Vickie @ Ranger 911 said...

You've been busy! What a nice friend you are to help out.

Grammy Goodwill said...

That was a great idea for the centerpieces. I'm wondering if you had a master list where people could check to see how many of them they could recognize?

Grammy Goodwill said...

I went back, read more closely, and saw where you had a master list. If I'd been at the party, I probably would have missed the list, too!

Unknown said...

very cool
-KAT

Deneen@dreaming-n-color said...

With all you have going on you still get a lot done! How's it going? Miss talking to you!

Lisa Montsion said...

This is very cool.

lisa