 Hello, my name is Janice Hall and I'm a regional extension agent with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Today we are here at the Edmundite Center of Hope in Selma, Alabama and we are going to demonstrate how to make some beautiful reefs for the Centennial Project for Otago County. And here we have Sharonda Armstrong. She's going to demonstrate how we're going to make these beautiful reefs today. Hi, I'm Sharonda Armstrong with the Edmundite Mission Center of Hope Senior Program and today we're going to make tablecloth reefs. It's a very simple project that anyone can do. First we begin by getting our supplies, a simple wire hanger that most of us have many in our closets, a pair of good scissors, pliers and a ruler. Those are the basic utensils that you will need along with tablecloths. You can get a variety of colored tablecloths from any dollar store, Oriental trade, Walmart or many stores that carry a variety of colored tablecloths. That's what we'll be using today to make our tablecloth reefs. It's very simple. First we begin by taking our hanger and we shape it into a circle. You can use your hand or you can use the pliers that we've supplied. Just bend it into a circular shape and while you're doing it make sure you push it out. It does not have to be perfect. You're just looking for something that's circular in shape because once we start putting our strips of tablecloth on them it will all be perfectly fine. There we go. Next we take our tablecloth and today we're going to use a yellow tablecloth. We're going to open our package. If you notice when you unfold your tablecloth there will be sections of folds. It's very easy. All you have to do is unfold your tablecloth, line it up and if you fold it this way those who are unable to do it standing can do it sitting at a table. We take it and we place it. I like to fold it in force because that gives me a very easy way to cut it at a table. You align your tablecloth evenly on both sides and you tuck the insides so that you have a long rectangular shape. Next you lay it flat and you crease it and you take your scissors and you cut. You find the center and then you cut up the middle and again this is easy since I work with seniors. We try to make it easy so that they can do it while they're sitting down and you cut it on each edge. You have to remember since we folded it halfway we have two sections so you want to make sure that each of your ends is open that there's not a closed section. Good. All those ends are open. So let's check the other end. Okay. Everything's open on both ends. Now we take the sections and this is what we have. Now what we want to do it's cut in half. We want to check for a fold. If there is a fold you want to cut it in the fold. You just take your scissors, apply it at the end and cut. You place your hand on the end to give it some pressure. And next step fold again. It's a series of cutting and folding. I crease it and then I cut along the crease. Then we take it fold it again and as we fold we're folding it in half so most of our strips will be the same shape. Next we fold again and we apply pressure as we fold. Fold, take our scissors and we cut. This is one of the simpler ways I found to cut the tablecloth. Now you see that we have a little thick fold in our tablecloth. So what I'm going to do take about half of it and fold it again. Just repeating the process and when you get to have folds this size you take them and this will be your last fold and you cut. You should end up with strips that are approximately one and a half inch to two inches. So these I like to make them thick for seniors. So these are about two inches in size. We fold again and we repeat the process until you have a stack of strips. You can do it with one color or you can do it with several colors. You can make them your favorite colors, your favorite school colors, team colors. This is a project that can be done by children and adults as well. It's a great family project because children are able to cut and fold parents and tell stories while you do this project together. So we're just cutting and folding cutting and folding ending up with our strips. Don't worry if you have jagged edges while you're cutting. Once you finish your project you can just take scissors and trim around the edges. It takes approximately one and one half table cloth to make a full wreath that will fit the wire hanger that I showed you previously. So we're almost finished. This is our last section of cutting and folding. You can really get creative with your wire hangers. You can make them in various shapes. You can have them as a circular shape. You can do the alphabet, the letters of your name. So there are many possibilities. It's just a series of cutting, folding and then tying. Now we've cut one complete table cloth. So this is our stack of one color. Once we cut them we take our hanger and we take one of our strips that we've cut. We take it, place it around the wire hanger and we start tying it on, tie and pull. And we're repetitive in this process. Strip, sometimes when they get stuck together we discover you can take a little water, dab on your fingers and that makes them easier to come loose as well and tie. And as you tie you just keep sliding them up because you want it to be very tight once you finish and that gives the effect of a full wreath. So separate. This is why it'll be a good family project because while you're working on this together someone can sort the strips for you and that will make it easier and one person can tie. That's why it's a good cooperative effort for people to do. And you just slide them on and you keep repeating that process. I have one done for you and since it's close to Mardi Gras we chose to do purple, green and gold. And these are our strips that we've cut. Our purple, our green and our gold and we alternated them on this wire hanger. So as you can see we've taken each one and placed it in order on this hanger. And as we tie we take it and we press it. You want to give it as much tension as you can to make sure it's tight. And you keep moving it and pressing it as tight as you can because that gives the illusion. This is what you begin with and this is close to a finished product. So the more you put on here the tighter it will be. So this is our Mardi Gras purple, green and gold. So just as I started on this one we take these and we just tie. So it's just a series of repetitive tying. And once we're finished you'll have a complete Mardi Gras wreath or any wreath of your favorite color.