Including a centerpiece in your baby shower decorations can add a splash of color to a food serving table, or a sophisticated style to the place settings at a dining table. A centerpiece is a special type of decoration that decorates a table, either a dining table or a serving or gift table. Traditional centerpieces often include flowers or candles, but party centerpieces can get a little wilder with balloons or themed props.
What Makes a Good Centerpiece?
A good centerpiece draws the eye to a pretty, interesting, or funny arrangement at the center of the table. It can also give your guests a talking point to help start the conversation flowing!
You often begin by choosing a centerpiece based on the party’s theme. For example, if you base the baby shower on Pixar’s charming movie Up, you might make a balloon centerpiece that looks like the house in the movie.
But you can also branch out from the party theme and go with simple elegance by using candles, flowers, fruit, or other decorative items to make a lovely and easy centerpiece for the party.
You will find lots of inspiration for creative baby shower centerpieces here! Before you pick one, though, consider a few additional design elements:
- Look at the shape and size of your table (or tables). Round tables work best with tall centerpieces, as food or guests can easily move around them despite their height. Square tables have the most space in the center, allowing for a wider, flatter arrangement. For a rectangular table, go for a table runner style with a low centerpiece interspersed with taller elements like vases or candles down the length of the table.
- Consider the tablescape of your venue. For a baby shower, you may plan to have guests eat at tables in a larger venue, and place centerpieces on each table. Or you may want one centerpiece on the food buffet table in your house.
- Finally, think about the cost. You can easily DIY baby shower centerpieces for little to no cost. But you can also order beautiful flower arrangements for around $50, or buy cute centerpiece props that match your theme for even less.
Baby Item Baby Shower Centerpiece Ideas
No matter what theme you choose for your baby shower, you can’t go wrong with a cutesy centerpiece using baby items like diapers, bottles, or rubber ducks!
Diaper Cake Centerpiece
Make a diaper cake as the centerpiece of the food table. The fantastic thing about this centerpiece is that it can double as a gift for the new mom. You can even buy a diaper cake kit if a from-scratch DIY seems like too much work!
Diaper Vase Centerpiece
Or use diaper “vases” to hold cardboard letters spelling out the baby’s name, if the new parents have already announced it. Simply roll six diapers into cylinders and tie them into a bigger cylinder using a ribbon. Then insert a cardboard letter or theme-related item on a stick in the center of the cylinder, like a flower in a vase.
Punch Bowl Centerpiece
Fill a glass punchbowl or trifle dish with glass pebbles and water, then float a handful of rubber duckies on top.
Baby Bottle Centerpiece
Line up four or five baby bottles and cut slits in the nipples to insert pictures of the new parents or the sonogram. This arrangement works great for individual tables where your guests will sit down to eat, as they can lean in to look at the pictures and comment on them to begin a conversation.
Stuffed Animal Centerpiece
Use stuffed animals like teddy bears as part of the centerpiece. Again, this is a lovely way to incorporate a gift for the mom-to-be into the decor! Check out this short tutorial from Sweet Depot to learn how to incorporate a teddy bear into a centerpiece.
Balloon Baby Shower Centerpiece Ideas
Balloon centerpieces make excellent splashy, eye-catching arrangements that bring a super festive air to your baby shower.
- Make a balloon arrangement using balloons to make a “vase,” then place a themed balloon at the top. You can watch this easy tutorial from Redcliffe Party Supplies to learn how! For a tall centerpiece, you can buy balloon stands instead of vases, like these.
- You can create an easy centerpiece by tying five or six helium balloons to anything connected to the shower theme, like a teddy bear or a plastic dinosaur.
- You can even get a balloon table runner to drape across the length of a rectangular table! Or learn how to make your own balloon table runner from this short tutorial if you prefer.
- If you want a real show stopper as a balloon centerpiece, you can make your own hot air balloon centerpiece using a big helium balloon, or buy a kit for an easier hot air balloon centerpiece.
- You can also get clear letter boxes spelling “baby” and fill them with colorful balloons that match your theme for a classy, eye-catching centerpiece. You can find these letter boxes at most party stores, or order them online.
Food Baby Shower Centerpiece Ideas
One great way to save some time when prepping for a baby shower is to use a food item as the centerpiece! The most popular choice for a food centerpiece is to make a fun, thematic cake and use it to decorate your food table, especially for a small-scale baby shower at your home where guests will snack from a buffet table instead of all sitting at a table to eat.
- To use a cake as a centerpiece, you want to give it some height so it stands out from the rest of the food on the table. Try placing your cake on a stand like this one.
- If you have a glass dome cake stand like this one, stack cupcakes inside for a simple, sparkling centerpiece. You can make your own cupcakes using cute on-theme decor, or just buy cupcakes from a grocery store and stick on adorable baby shower cupcake toppers like these.
- The easiest way to build a cake centerpiece is to use multiple layers decorated either in the “naked cake” style that shows the cake on the sides or by making rosettes with an icing bag up the sides and over the top of the cake. Then all you need to do is add a cake topper. You can select an item to go with the shower theme for this, like using real roses for a flower-themed shower or a rubber duckie for a yellow-themed shower. Or you can buy simple cake toppers with messages, like “Welcome baby” or “Oh baby.”
- Do you feel anxious about trying to decorate a cake? No worries! You can buy complete kits like this one that come with all the props you need to turn a simple layer cake into a splashy centerpiece in no time.
Outdoor and Rustic Baby Shower Centerpiece Ideas
Whether you plan to host a baby shower outdoors at a park or zoo or you simply want to bring a foresty feel inside for the shower, you can’t go wrong with a rustic, outdoors-themed centerpiece!
- Use mason jars, tree cookies, and burlap for that farmhouse chic rustic style you see all over Pinterest. One easy way to use all three of these items in a centerpiece is to find a large tree cookie (this means a slice of a tree trunk) and place three or four mason jars on top. Wrap a burlap ribbon around each jar and then fill the jars with flowers or balloons.
- Use a large metal pail in place of a vase for a rustic floral centerpiece. Watch this tutorial from Creative Glow to learn how to make a shabby chic bucket for your centerpiece!
- Place wooden lanterns in the center of the table. You can fill them with battery candles, or stuff them with flowers or baby’s breath instead.
- If you want to take the rustic flower vase idea even further, you can make your own burlap roses to fill a shabby-chic vase, such as a bucket, a wooden crate, or a mason jar.
- Another way to embrace the rustic decor style is to use an unusual container for the centerpiece. For example, you could use a metal colander filled with fresh flowers instead of a traditional vase. Or fill metal coffee cans with fresh greenery for another simple springtime style.
- If you’re short on time, you can also buy cute kits of woodland animal decor to use as a centerpiece. Simply find a rustic vase or an old-fashioned blue glass mason jar, and fill it with cute paper animals!
Floral Baby Shower Centerpiece Ideas
Traditional party centerpieces use flowers to create whimsical, elegant, or eye-catching arrangements.
- If you want sweet instead of stunning for your shower centerpiece, fill any kind of vase with baby’s breath. You can add a themed item in the center of the baby’s breath if you want, like inserting a cardboard cake topper with a cute message, mixing in giant lollipops, or gluing something funky like a small stuffed elephant to a stick and putting that in the center of the vase to match your baby shower theme.
- Find cute letter boxes that spell out “baby” or the little one’s name, and fill each one with real flowers, or fake flowers from the Dollar Store. You can find tips on how to arrange flowers in a box by watching this short tutorial.
- When you make a flower arrangement, you often want to choose an opaque container or vase that hides the stems. But you can also go with really simple arrangements by placing a whole bunch of small glass containers on a tray and inserting just one flower into each one. This low-cost option only takes a few minutes to set up!
- You can even make a “floral” centerpiece without any flowers! One of the best centerpieces for a boho baby shower is placing several fluffy sprigs of pampas grass into a fun vase. Or you can weave branches of eucalyptus leaves around glass candle holders for a simple green centerpiece.
Classic Baby Shower Centerpiece Ideas
Check out these classic baby shower centerpiece ideas if you prefer simple elegance over something flashy or funny!
- Match the color scheme of the baby shower theme by filling a fruit bowl, cake stand, or punch bowl with fruits or decorative items in that color. For example, for a yellow, sunshine, or bumble bee baby shower, you could stack lemons on a pretty cake stand for a centerpiece.
- Another classic centerpiece perfect for many baby showers is to fill a big, tall glass vase halfway with water, and then add lemons, oranges, or limes for a splash of color.
- As a twist on the same idea, you can also layer slices of lemons or limes along the inner edges of a glass vase, so that they show from the outside. Then add fresh flowers on top to contrast the bright, citrusy color. You can also line the inside of a vase with wine corks, pacifiers, or baby food jar lids.
- A candle centerpiece adds a soft, elegant style to any table. For a tall centerpiece, use a tall column candleholder surrounded by several smaller candles. If you have a rectangular table you need to decorate, place several candlestands down the center of the table, and weave fresh flowers or greenery around the base of the candlestands.
- If you don’t have a decorative bone in your body, you may want to buy a centerpiece instead of figuring out how to place items together so they look nice. In that case, you can buy a classic, elegant candleholder like this one, and you’re good to go!
Conclusion
Adding a centerpiece to the food table, dining table, or gift table at a baby shower makes the table a focal point for the party decor. It allows you to add height, flair, and interest to an otherwise “boring” surface, which can make a big difference in a small space! A great centerpiece can also give your guest something to talk about, to help break the ice among a group of strangers.
Some of the best baby shower centerpieces highlight the party’s theme, using colors or items that match the theme. Other fun centerpieces use baby-related items, like bottles or diapers, to celebrate the point of the baby shower. Of course, you can also use a traditional style of a centerpiece, like a flower arrangement or a rustic lantern and candles!
No matter what style you choose, adding a centerpiece to the baby shower will bring your decorations to life.