20 Bright and Easy Spring Centerpieces

Spring greeting

A clear cookie jar shows off a mix of dyed eggs and a medley of flowers united by their color.

Start with a large-mouth cookie jar or canister, a clear drinking glass that fits inside the jar, dyed hard-cooked eggs and flowers. Center the drinking glass inside the jar and carefully stack the eggs between the glass and jar, alternating egg colors. Fill the glass with water.

Cut the stems of your favorite flowers (we used roses, gerbera daisies, tulips, hyacinths and bells of Ireland) to the desired length and arrange them in the glass.

Spring cheer

Uplift Easter brunch, a wedding shower or any spring event with a tabletop that captures the light and cheery feeling of the season. Start with a theme that celebrates a symbol of spring: a flower, a bird, an egg or a butterfly. Pull the design together with a refreshing color scheme, such as pastel pink and bright teal blue.

To get the look here: Accent vases and place settings with premade paper butterflies. Dress up solid-color napkins with a stamped seasonal design. For a final dash of happy pattern and color, cut place mats from decorative papers.

Tie a bunch for brunch

Turn grocery-store staples into clever tabletop details for your Mother's Day brunch or other celebrations. Fresh asparagus stalks cleverly embellish a pretty centerpiece and hold place cards; a knot of chives decorates a napkin.

For the centerpiece, wrap a cylindrical vase with two rubber bands, then slide stalks under the bands to cover the surface. Secure with twine and remove the bands. Fill with your favorite flowers; a bit of water in a bowl will keep the decoration fresh. For place card holders, cut three asparagus stalks to an even length, tie with twine, and slide a card between the tops.

Seasonal joy

Greet guests with a front-door display of seasonal joys, such as this vintage watering can. Set floral foam in the can to secure the stems. Fill in with spring accents, then wire to door.

Sweet spring wake-up

Set a pretty Easter tabletop with inexpensive pastel gingham fabrics, ribbons and simple white dishware.

With pinking shears, cut a tablecloth to fit your table. Dress up napkins with decorative trim, such as rickrack. Wrap ribbons around a white centerpiece container and coordinating ramekins (or egg holders) for the place settings. To make place cards out of colored eggs, apply names with adhesive letters from a crafts supply store, or use your own white ink script.

Layer dessert plates for color, then nestle eggs and perky daisies in fresh wheatgrass from a health-food or pet-food store.

Showers and flowers

An umbrella-transforms from a rainy-day staple into a celebration of cheer when you use it as a clever container for tulips and springtime-trimmings.

Tie a ribbon halfway up a closed umbrella. Create pockets between front ribs and tuck in tissue paper to support a crafts-store bird's nest; blown eggs; and fresh flowers such as tulips and daffodils. Fill in with ferns and moss. To keep flowers fresh, enclose stems in water vials, or tuck them into heavy plastic bags filled with floral foam powder, available at floral supply stores. Wire the arrangement to a door hook.

Ribbon makeover

Give any plain vase a seasonal makeover with a simple band of ribbon. Here, two overlapping ribbons add an extra spring kick to a container of peonies. Attach with double-sided tape.

Daffodil delight

Bring the cheer of daffodils to your tabletop with a sunny centerpiece or place setting.

Create a centerpiece by stacking citrus, such as lemons or oranges, into a pyramid inside a bowl. Skewers or toothpicks help hold the fruit in place. Fill the bowl with water, and tuck fresh daffodils into the gaps.

Or brighten your place settings by making single-flower posies. Insert daffodils into plastic water vials (available at crafts supply stores) and wrap them with napkins. Tie off with twine.

Nest of eggs

A handful of dyed eggs and some easy-to-find carnations create a quick, fun spring centerpiece.

Nestle dyed eggs in a small bowl and set in the center of a medium-size footed bowl (prop bowl on a dish if necessary). Fill the footed bowl with a few inches of water. Cut carnation stems about 2 or 3 inches long, and pack the blooms around the bowl of eggs.

Super-easy spring color

Flavored vinegar, olive oil and white wine bottles yield shapely, sparkly vases with delicate spring color for a mantel or tabletop decoration. Choose a variety of sizes, remove labels, fill with water and tuck in fern fronds, fresh from your spring landscape.

Carryout bouquet

Carryout boxes made of frosted plastic become elegant containers for floral centerpieces. Place spring blooms such as daffodils and tulips inside a short, water-filled glass before setting in the box.

Artichoke flowers

A bouquet of baby artichokes makes a nice alternative to spring flowers such as tulips.

Cut stems short and poke in floral picks or wooden skewers. Fit the pitcher with floral foam to anchor the skewers, then arrange like flowers. To keep your bouquet fresh longer, store in the fridge at night.

Hats off

Improvise an Easter basket using a sweet straw hat. Fill it with softly colored eggs, either hollowed or artificial. Personalize with rub-on letters or even notes tucked inside, if you're using hollowed eggs.

To empty an egg, use a long needle to gently prick a small hole into each of the egg's two ends. Pierce the yolk with the needle and then gently blow into one hole, pushing the contents out the other end.

Cute cachepot

Repurpose your coffee cups into tiny centerpieces for place settings.

Tuck a small baby's tears plant into a demitasse and add a copper tag. For lettering, try rub-on decals available in the scrapbooking section of crafts stores.

Flower power

Make every egg a star by propping each in its own mini terra-cotta pot.

Dress up the planter by hot-gluing ribbon around the top edge. To decorate basic white eggs, add scrapbooking stickers. These cute paper flowers are easy to wrap around curved edges.

Tabletop spring tree

Let your spring decorating branch out with a tabletop Easter tree.

Stand branches in a pail filled with play sand, then decorate the boughs with paper birds and dyed eggs. To hang blown-out eggs, glue both ends of a loop of ribbon just inside the egg's hole, then glue a button on top of the hole to secure the ribbon ends. To make the bird, cut body and wings from pieces of scrapbooking paper and glue together. Try tiny buttons for eyes.

Towering topiaries

These Brussels sprout-covered topiaries began as 15-inch foam cones and a pair of footed soup tureens. Use long T-shape pins to attach Brussels sprouts to the foam, placing them as close together as possible. Fill in open areas and spruce up the bottom with sphagnum moss. The arrangement should last about a week.

Sunny cheer

Place yellow flowers--in this case, double yellow tulips--in a clear vase with festive kumquats and water. They'll add a touch of spring to your dining table or any corner of your house.

Lovely lilacs

Lilacs look beautiful in even the simplest of bottles or other containers. And smell even better.

Cut lilacs stay fresh only a few days. To keep your flowers fresh as long as possible, trim off any leaves that will be underwater, and recut the stem ends while they're underwater in a bucket before arranging. Change the water in the vase daily.

Simple egg display

Create a quick-and-easy centerpiece by mounding hard-cooked brown and white eggs on a garden of lettuce in a footed china compote. Vary the look by using colored or even chocolate eggs, or by trying ferns or other greens instead of lettuce.