Building a Maypole

It is the time of year when people are celebrating Oktoberfest.

What better time (except for maybe the month of May) to display a Maypole.

Maypoles originated in Germany. This year my cousin and I again worked in the German Village at the Mountain State Art and Craft Fair at Cedar Lakes, WV.

We built a Maypole from scratch to display in the village.

First you need a pole. My son went out into the woods and cut down a very straight tree. It was approximately 4 inches in diameter. He cut off the limbs and sawed it to be a length of 10 feet -- If you are unable to get into the woods, you could also use a 3" or 4" diameter PVC Pipe. They are not very expensive to buy.

Obtain flowers . . .

I bought 9 bunches of them at our local discount store.

Ribbon . . .

We used grosgrain ribbon. It is durable and pretty. We cut them into 8 long strips. Since your pole will be 8 feet in height after putting it in the ground, I would make the ribbons around 12 feet long. You can't make them longer, but you can always shorten them if you need to, after putting the Maypole up.

(2) 12" Metal wreath forms . . .

We attached 2 wreath forms together for extra durability. My cousin's husband cut wood slats and attached them to the wreath, so we would have a way to screw the wreath to the top of the pole.


Tie the ribbons securely to the wreath form.

 

If you have 8 ribbons, 8 people can dance around the pole.


Attach the flowers

We slid the flowers off their stems, and hot glued ornament hangers into the hole left from where we took the stems out. When the glue was dry, we tied the flowers onto the wreath form with the wire. This worked out very good. On the wood we hot glued the leaves taken from the flower stems.

As you can see, it turned out beautiful! We did it all in just a few hours one evening.

Dig a hole approximately 2 feet deep to place the pole in. Firmly tamp the dirt around it.

Screw through the wooden slats, that are attached to the flowered wreath, to secure it to the top of the pole. You don't want the wreath to turn.

In addition to dancing around the Maypole, they make for a great photo op.
You see from the pic how pretty the ribbon looks twirled around the pole after people have danced around it.

 Enjoy the fall!