How to Create Table Centerpieces

Table centerpieces provide dining room and kitchen tables with accents to the decorative environment. Making your own tabletop centerpieces allows you the creativity to mix and match a variety of coordinating pieces for a variety of occasions. From festive and seasonal to creative and floral, table centerpieces add a personal touch to the spreads of your meals whether they're casual with your family, or special occasions with all of your friends.

Instructions

Romantic Dinner Centerpiece

1

Place an aluminum bucket in the center of a table set for two people. Make sure it's a clean aluminum bucket, and not the kind taken from your garden shed. Make it about two gallons in size.

2

Fill the bucket about 3/4 full with round ice cubes. Place a bottle of champagne or sparkling cider into the center of the bucket.

3

Surround the outer part of the bucket with a single vine of ivy, or use a grapevine. A grapevine with the grapes intact makes an even more beautiful embellishment. Artificial or real work both work for this centerpiece.

4

Make a fist around a bundle of about 10 flowers. Any type of flower will do, depending on your tastes, such as roses, lilies, carnations, daisies and irises.

5

Insert the bundle of flowers, stems down, into the bucket of ice. Let the flowers fall naturally around the bottle of cider or champagne.

Kid Friendly

6

Place a wicker basket in the center of the table.

7

Empty a 100-pack of crayons into the basket. Scatter them around a bit so the colors are evenly distributed around the basket.

8

Arrange a variety of children's toys throughout the basket. Toys such as small rubber balls, playing cards, wind-up toys and other novelties add more color and texture to the centerpiece.

9

Wrap a single rubber band around a rolled-up coloring book, keeping it rolled. Do this with a few more coloring books, or a coloring book for every child who will be present at the table.

10

Anchor the rolled-up coloring books into the very center of the basket, standing them upright. The toys and crayons should keep them stable. Another idea is to lay them all down in a pyramid stack so that they protrude from the center of the basket.