Do it Yourself Dining Room Centerpieces

Centerpieces serve up such an elegant dining experience, but they can break the bank when your decorating your dining room.  Try one of these do it yourself projects to make an accessory to dine for….

Flowers

You can’t go wrong with fresh flowers as a centerpiece as an accessory for your dining room table.  Flowers work for every occasion a floral between a pair of candlesticks is an elegant timeless classic.  But purchasing a centerpiece for your dining room table can set you back a pretty penny.  Make your own – fresh, dried or silk. 

  • Choose your base – I love antique bowls for centerpiece – porcelain or silver – they’re stunning with flowers.  Just don’t let one upstage the other.  If using a heavily patterned bowl, use only one or two colors in the flowers.  If using a plainer bowl, you can use more colors in the flowers.
  • Use foam or clay to hold the arrangement in place.
  • Design in a full circle, it’s going to be visible from all sides and angles.  Setting the base on a lazy susan while arranging helps you design from all angles.
  • Obviously you’re going to need to have taller flowers in the middle, shorter to the exterior.  Start in the middle and work your way out.
  • Odd numbers groupings, just like accessories, look more natural.
  • If you plan on leaving the arrangement in place while eating, make sure it’s not obscuring anyone’s view.

Fruit

Try a fruit filled centerpiece to replace flowers, but not just any fruit, sugared fruit can take it from the kitchen to the dining room with sparkle. 

To sugar the fruit
Use any type of fruit your heart desires – bright colors work best – oranges, apples, grapes and crabapples in particular.  Use a skewer to hold the fruit.

Use a basting brush to cover with a layer of beaten egg whites.

Sprinkle extra-fine sugar over the fruit using the skewer to rotate it around so you can cover all sides.  The first few layers will probably dissolve in the egg whites, so just keep going until it coats.  It doesn’t need to be even, heavier spots of sugar will look more natural.

Designing the centerpiece

Use a tray, bowl or even a cake stand as your base.  Use large leaves – such as oak leaves or magnolia leaves depending on the season, even pine boughs work in the winter. 

Layer the fruit amidst the leaves with pillared candles.  You can spruce up the arrangement with picks of faux berries, but don’t overdo it – the sugared fruit and leaves can stand on their own in an arrangement.