Chic Christmas Centrepieces

Make sure that when guests gather at your table this holiday season, you leave them saying "ooh" as much as "mmm." Here are some great eye-catching, centrepiece ideas that will brighten your table and delight your guests.

Miniature Christmas Trees
Pick up some miniature trees (from about 20 to 30cm tall) at a florist or garden centre. Once they're in decorative pots you can cover the soil with green moss and attach ribbons or tiny decorations to the branches.

Fruit Topiary
Create a focal point on your buffet table with this festive topiary tree, made from your choice of fresh or faux fruit. [see below for instructions on this project]

Beautiful Reflections
Take an inexpensive, round mirror and top it with candles and flowers or greenery. As with all centerpieces, make sure your flowers or greenery are not taller than 30 cm —otherwise, your guests will have trouble conversing across the table.

More centrepiece ideas...

Festive Flower Box
Paint an old flower box. For an added decorative touch, decoupage or distress it. Fill the box with an arrangement of decorative grasses, fruits and exotic flowers. You'll need floral foam to secure your grasses and flowers. Requires a bit more time to assemble, but well worth the time.

Bowls of Silver and Light
Find a silver-footed bowl and fill with floral foam. Nest a wide candle into the centre of the foam, then drape flowers, swags of ivy or holly, and clusters of brightly coloured berries around the outside.

Simply Light
If you'd prefer more light and less foliage at the centre of your table, here's one way to lightly spruce up your candles. Purchase a couple wide candles, warm the outside briefly with a hairdryer, then press holly leaves into the softened wax, leaving a section bare at the top. Place candles on small saucers and surround with holly and swags of balsam fir.

Note: Burning candles are a risk in any household setting; when they are part of your holiday centrepiece, extreme care and caution is advised.

For the Fruit Topiary you will need:
- Table knife
- 20cm foam cone
- Toothpicks

- Wood glue
- Miniature artificial or fresh pears, plums, kumquats, blueberries, and
  cranberries
- Grape leaves
- Footed crystal cake plate or compote

Here's how:
1. Use a table knife to trim off the tip of the foam cone. Put a generous amount of wood glue     on the entire length of a toothpick.

2. Insert one end of toothpick into a pear and the opposite end into top of cone. Continue     attaching pears to cone in rows, working from top to bottom.

3. Fill in gaps between pears with miniature plums, then kumquats, attaching them in the     same manner as the pears.

4. Finish with blueberries and cranberries, using toothpicks cut in half to attach.

5. Randomly tuck grape leaves into arrangement, dabbing glue on stems to secure in place.

6. When cone is covered with fruit as desired, let glue dry. Place the cone on a crystal     compote.

  source: meredith-hunter douglas