Turn a Box Into A Folk Art Centerpiece

• Add an old wooden candlestick on each side of your flower box centerpiece.
  
  Folk art is handmade and one of a kind. If you have an unusual chest or old jewelry box, you can turn it into a folk art planter or flower box for your dining room table. You can also buy plain boxes in different sizes at the craft store and paint them in quaint patterns. Then use one or all of them to hold floral arrangements on the dining room table. Find a glass container that fits inside whatever box or chest you're using, place floral foam in it, and arrange the flowers. If they are real flowers, add water to the floral foam. Another fun and folksy idea is to find old fashioned pictures and glue them to old coffee cans. Apply a decoupage finish over the pictures. Or, cover your coffee cans with fabrics like calico and gingham and apply a varnish. Once you fill them with flowers, your coffee cans become charming centerpieces for your table.
  
  

Folk Art Motifs

• Handpainted hens for your table
  
  Farm animals, roosters and hens, fruits and vegetables are popular folk art motifs. Find some wooden roosters or hens and circle them round a primitive candlestick. Better yet, drill holes in their backs big enough to hold candles, and turn them into a farmyard candelabra. An old pottery bowl with raised fruits, vines and roosters makes another handsome centerpiece for your table, especially when you fill it with old painted wooden apples. Everything should have that primitive rough-hewn look, with a matte finish and even a slightly banged-up condition.
  
  

Toile as Folk Art

• A bucolic scene on a charger plate
  
  The old fashioned looking print you see on fabric and pottery, usually in one color on a white background, is toile. Toile features commonplace scenes of farmyards and the rustic life. If you do not have toile objects in ceramic, buy some toile fabric and use it to make your own centerpiece. For instance, you can cover charger plates with toile fabric and then give them a decoupage finish. Use one of the charger plates as your centerpiece, and set candles of different heights on it. Using toile is a clever way to camouflage any container and turn it into a folk art vase for a centerpiece.