How to Create a Christmas Table Centerpiece
Whether your style is classic Christmas or modern bohemian, the holiday season is the perfect time to get inspired and create a stunning Christmas centerpiece that highlights your style through unique holiday decor. To encourage our community and embrace there’s no right or wrong way to create a holiday centerpiece, we collaborated with two separate stylists to inspire us with their 2022 Christmas centerpiece ideas.For a wintery Christmas table centerpiece inspired by lush forests and romantic white roses, we partnered with stylist Cassandra LaValle. Her centerpiece, a classic white and green holiday combo, defines understated elegance by keeping it simple yet abundant. Finally, we partnered with stylist Erin Hiemstra on a floral arrangement that easily transitions from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Her modern jewel-toned centerpiece radiates creativity by playing with the unexpected color combo of fake mauve roses and artificial pears. Follow along as we walk you through how to create each centerpiece, the materials used, and how to choose florals and greenery that embrace your unique style and ideal table decor!
How to Make a Classic Christmas Centerpiece with Artificial Greenery
If you’re craving a classic Christmas look and love the simplicity of monochrome color palettes, style your centerpiece with gold accents, rich greenery, and white flowers. This color combo is evergreen and allows your design to transition easily from Christmas decor into a lush, new year greenery look. A gold compote bowl full of overflowing artificial winter branches stays in style through early Spring and can be easily repurposed year after year. Shop all Christmas greenery and decor.
For this fake flower centerpiece, LaValle chose to ground the design with our fan-favorite gold Lita compote. Next, she created a chicken wire ball and secured it inside the vase with clear grid tape. Once the structure was secure, she first laid out the base of her design with her largest artificial branches - an organic S shape with Norfolk pine.
Afloral Real-touch Norfolk pine is botanically inspired, recreated from the rich hues and natural contours of hanging branches. These artificial branches set the stage for the rest of the design, allowing LaValle to build an organic shape that drapes across her holiday table.
After creating her base S shape with Norfolk pine, LaValle added faux juniper branches and artificial cedar picks to fill out her design. Adorned with blue-shaded berries, Afloral faux juniper branches create subtle contrast and add texture to the Norfolk and cedar branches.
Once her base was complete, LaValle peppered two types of white real-touch roses throughout her centerpiece. With slight variations in shade, the fake white roses and the fake cream roses draw the eye toward the center of the arrangement and then up, creating dimension. By using two different shades of the same hue, you can create texture and complexity in an arrangement instead of a mass of one color.
LaValle sprinkled in a few fake pine cone branches for the final holiday accent and added hand-made beeswax taper candles to set the scene - the perfect Christmas dinner table centerpiece complete. After the holiday, she can remix this design by removing the roses to create an everyday look.
For this design, LaValle used one Lita Compote, the Afloral Essentials Kit, five Norfolk branches, five juniper branches, five cedar branches, three pine cone branches, three real-touch cream roses, and three real-touch Juliet roses.
How to Make a Transitional Thanksgiving Centerpiece with Artificial Flowers
We love when a design has legs. Legs - meaning this one centerpiece can be reused, remixed, and was created with transition in mind - it’s the perfect Thanksgiving centerpiece that can also be used for holidays, and Spring, then every day, without changing a thing. With rich jewel tones paired with earthy elements and artificial winter branches, this modern artificial flower centerpiece brings your table to life then lasts forever.
When choosing this color palette and the various fake flowers and branches to showcase it, we leaned into texture and florals with different heights, shapes, and sizes to create contrast and dimension. Stylist Erin Hiemstra and photographer Stephanie Russo captured the mood with soft natural light and minimal table elements, allowing the florals to shine.
Soft green artificial pears and dusty mauve fake roses pair well together because they’re opposite on the color wheel. Contrasting colors and various shades complement each other without overpowering the eye. These two colors, grounded by our whitewashed compote bowl and natural wooden candles holders, create a modern take on the traditional rustic Thanksgiving centerpiece. With architectural greenery like faux juniper and draping fake pear branches, the design appears funky, fun, and full of life - perfect for a festive holiday gathering.
Hiemstra started her design with our whitewashed compote bowl to create this compote design. She built a chicken wire ball, secured it to the compote with grid tape, then began building out her composition with her focal flowers - mauve real-touch dutchess roses. Because these roses have a large bloom, they center the arrangement. She kept the stems long to play around with shape and height.
Hiemstra added deep mauve and yellow real-touch fake Helleborus flowers as her secondary bloom for this design. Their yellow/green center complements the artificial pears and ties the two colors together. Next, she added the artificial pear branches, bending and manipulating each branch, so the fruit draped naturally instead of straight up. Nature and its lines are never straight; allow your stems to dance organically by playing with each one before adding it to your centerpiece. Finally, Hiemstra added faux juniper stems and cedar picks throughout the composition to provide texture and a grounding green tone.
Throughout the process, she continued to turn and look at the design from different angles - this is important so you don’t end up with a “back” of an arrangement when you have guests seated all around. Finally, she added taper candles to natural wood candle holders and a simple gold candelabra to complete this dining table look.
Our designers chose focal blooms, smaller medium blooms, accent greenery, and grounding greenery for each arrangement. In addition, they chose artificial flowers and foliage that varied in texture and size, which helped to create a more complex look. They also chose a palette beforehand and played off complimenting tones. This helped to identify what mood they wanted to evoke before designing.
Winter Centerpiece styled by Cassandra LaValle and photographed by Meghan Klein. Transitional Fall Centerpiece styled by Erin Hiemstra and photographed by Stephanie Russo.