Christmas centrepieces to transform your table

1. To make this Christmas arrangement, you will need: one block of florist's oasis, a basket or pot, florist scissors, and a selection of foliage and berries which you can gather from the garden, or buy from a florist. We used: pine, eucalyptus and a mix of skimmia and hypericum red berries, topped off with red roses. The rest of it is really up to you – you can add a few spare Christmas baubles, pine cones dusted with a little bit of sugar, homedried orange or apple slices (http://howtomakedo.net/248/how-to-make-dried-apple-and-orange-slices) or cinammon sticks. Florist wire will also come in handy if you use any of the latter. Photograph: Linda Nylind/guardian.co.uk

2. Soak the oasis in a bucket half-filled with water to start and line your container with a bit of plastic at the bottom (a cut-down carrier bag will do – you won't be able to see it anyway). Don't push the oasis under the water, otherwise it will develop air pockets – just sit it in the bucket and let it lap the water up itself (you can see it absorbing it as you go). Then cut it down to size using a knife to fit in the basket (cut it so that it is ever so slightly higher than the depth of your container.) Photograph: Linda Nylind/guardian.co.uk

3. Add you first layer of foliage, choosing the leafiest, bushiest one first. We started with pine (which adds a very woody, festive scent to the air) but Simon says that berried ivy from the garden is perfect as a base to start “building” your display from. If you use pine, like we did, cut into branch shapes and pull off the needles from the bottom so that you've got an inch or so of stem to push into the oasis. Make sharp points into the oasis with the stem – don't go into the same hole twice as you'll create air pockets. Work your way around the container, so that the first layer lies horizontal hanging over the edge of your pot or basket... Photograph: Linda Nylind/guardian.co.uk

4. ...Then slowly start layering upwards, and turn the pot as you go so you can make sure the height is even. Alternate with some of the different foliage types – here, we mixed eucalyptus leaves with pine ones. Don't cram it all together though; leave a few gaps... Photograph: Linda Nylind/guardian.co.uk

5. …so that you can start adding berries inbetween. If you want to, you can dust your berries with glitter, or sugar, by spraying them gently with spray mount and lightly rolling in the sparkly stuff. Photograph: Linda Nylind/guardian.co.uk

6. To complete the look and inject some colour, add roses (there may still be a few left in the garden at this time of year – but we used the blooms from the Autograph Christmas rose bouquet, at £7.99). White roses would look equally Christmassy against the deep greens of all the leaves. When positioning, Simon says you should always remember to group in odd numbers (we used three roses on each side), placed in a vaguely triangular shape. Photograph: Linda Nylind/guardian.co.uk

7. Or, if you don't want to spend money on roses, use Christmas decorations – simply nudge a stem into the base of a bauble and use the bauble's wire to wrap around the stem to secure. With dried fruit – like the apples and oranges we used- weave florist's wire through, cut to roughly the same size as the foliage leaves you've used. Photograph: Linda Nylind/guardian.co.uk

8. You can use baubles and fruit (and cinammon, and pine cones) instead of roses... Photograph: Linda Nylind/guardian.co.uk

9. ...or all of it together for a festive mix match – here the oranges really stand out against the roses. And there you have it: an lovely homemade display to take pride of place on the dinner table. Before, that is, the turkey comes out. Photograph: Linda Nylind/guardian.co.uk