Brighten Up Your Meals With Table Centerpieces!

When you sit down to eat, how often do you include table centerpieces? Not often? Well, these decorations can be simple, inexpensive and available on a moment’s notice! Using table centerpieces for every day use, you can brighten your table considerably, making even a casual family supper a little bit special. How can you have a choice of ready table centerpieces? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

When you think of centerpieces for the table, you may think of a large vase with freshly-cut flowers. With the price of flowers, unless you’ve got your own cutting garden, this just isn’t practical. Don’t let that deter you. Table centerpieces are meant to serve as a unifying focal point for the entire table setting, and need not be limited to a single vase.

Other great table centerpieces are–candlesticks, decorative tins or boxes, tiny vases, votive candles, luminaria and baskets. In fact, any of these can complement a large vase to suit a particular theme.

When creating your table centerpieces, consider the size of your gathering. For a dinner for two, a taller vase of roses set towards the end of the table is quite romantic.

If you’ve got a large gathering, you won’t want a tall vase of flowers, beautiful as it may be, to interfere with your guests’ conversation. It can be awkward to crane your neck around that vase to speak with someone across the table.

It makes better sense, with a large group, to have several small votive style candles or luminaria down the length of the table, with small vases or glasses of small dried flowers, each tied with a colored ribbon bow. A table runner underneath, running the length of the table attractively unifies and completes the centerpiece.

Another large group idea for a table centerpiece uses a couple of large ornate candlesticks with a thin profile placed towards the ends of the table. Shallow baskets filled with silk flowers are set spaced towards the center of the table. This is a good way to have a more formal look without interfering with conversations.

Want the table to look more glamorous? Go in for garlands, icicles and strings of beads! These are decorations used on Christmas trees. If they are interwoven amongst the candles and flowers, they give a very glitzy look to the table! If you do not want such decorations, use small figurines instead. But what has to be kept in mind is that the table is not overcrowded with decorations–just a few of each should do. The idea is to provide visual appeal, not clutter the table with as many items as you can find!

A long, shallow basket filled with brightly colored fall gourds and “Indian” corn makes a simple yet beautiful table centerpiece. Fresh fruit in a couple of baskets and within reach of all your guests is both attractive and edible.

So you can see there’s a world of ideas for table centerpieces. Some people set aside space in a cupboard or sewing room to store all their “props” to choose on a moment’s notice, ready to put some pizazz on your table.