Easy Table Centerpiece Ideas

A centerpiece provides a decorative focal point for your holiday table, or dresses up the dining room between meals. While you can purchase an elaborate centerpiece at a florist, you can create elegant, yet simple, centerpieces yourself. You may even already have the ingredients for a simple centerpiece. Search cupboards and closets for pottery bowls, old vases, china teapots and empty baskets to serve as the base for your centerpiece and add other elements for an original and beautiful piece.

Fruit

A bowl of shiny apples or lemons adds color and fragrance to a kitchen or dining table. Recycle the fruit into recipes and salads. Choose a decorative bowl or basket for apples. Lemons also look lovely in a cylindrical glass vase. To add extra shine, polish the fruit with a little salad oil before you arrange it in the container.

Shells or Rocks

Collect seashells from the beach or polished stones from a creek bed and pile them in a glass dish for a nature-inspired centerpiece. Add bits of sea glass or pieces of driftwood for more color or texture. Wash the shells or rocks thoroughly before you arrange them, to bring out the color.

Candles

Arrange candles of various heights on a glass plate or section of mirror. Choose candles in a single color --- white, red or green. You could add leaves, flowers or decorative stones around the base of the candles, or let them stand on their own. This centerpiece looks attractive both lighted and unlit.

Flowers

Instead of a single vase filled with an elaborate bouquet, arrange a row of single blossoms in small vases. Or fill a china teacup with a bunch of carnations or roses. Use flowers from your garden or purchase single blossoms from a florist.

Seasonal Ornaments

Pile glass Christmas ornaments in a bowl. For Easter, arrange colored eggs in a basket filled with Easter grass. For Thanksgiving, fill a basket with miniature pumpkins and Indian corn. Or fill a bowl with candy conversation hearts for Valentine's Day.