If you're celebrating Fat Tuesday with a New Orleans-style Mardi Gras party, check out these festive centerpiece ideas you can easily DIY.
10 Fun Centerpiece Ideas for Your Mardi Gras Party
Let’s face it: Mardi Gras is the perfect excuse for throwing a party on a Tuesday. From king cake to bead throwing, the fun traditions you can incorporate into a Mardi Gras party at your home are easy to pull off—including the centerpieces you can create for the tablescapes at your Fat Tuesday event. Take a look at our best recipes for Mardi Gras!
Mask Holders
Repurposed wine bottles make the perfect holders for a Mardi Gras mask display. Sarah from Purple Patch DIY spray painted hers silver, then added the traditional Mardi Gras colors of purple, green and yellow to each one. The final touch are the color-coordinated masks, which can be placed on sticks and dropped into each bottle.
Mardi Gras Messages
A Mardi Gras themed party featured on Jillian’s blog, Catch My Party, included a few cute messages in the center of the table, wishing party guests a happy Mardi Gras. The cutouts were surrounded by an overflow of traditional colored beads and masks, which is an easy—and completely inexpensive—last-minute touch.
Coins Aplenty
The colorful coins that are a part of almost every Mardi Gras celebration have deep roots in the holiday’s tradition. Mary of Home is Where the Boat Is filled a clear bowl with the purple, green and yellow doubloons (a cheap steal at Party City), with a few beads scattered throughout.
Disco Ball Plate Toppers
In lieu of a centerpiece, Alycia of Tablescapes at Twenty-One dressed up the table at her Mardi Gras bash by placing a purple napkin and beads into each wine glass, topping off every plate with a purple, yellow or green miniature disco ball.
Mardi Gras Snack Mix
The best kind of centerpiece is an edible centerpiece—especially when it’s something as tasty and versatile as the snack mix that Sharon of Grits and Pine Cones made for her Mardi Gras get together. It’s also extremely easy to replicate, since you can swap out the snacks she used for your favorite ones instead (or the ones you already have in your kitchen pantry).
Glitter Candle Votives
Battery operated candles dipped in gold and silver sparkles—placed inside votives filled with purple, green and yellow confetti—are what Mardi Gras tablescape dreams are made of. Jessica, a contributor for Best Friends For Frosting, made the simple and festive candles in just a few minutes, but the end result is truly stunning.
Ornament Bowl
When Cristy of Pretty My Party asked Emily—the designer behind Magnolia Creative Co.—to style a Mardi Gras party, she made sure to tie every element of the table into the theme. Front and center on the tablescape is a brass bowl filled with purple, green and gold ornaments, with coordinating coins to boot.
Mardi Gras Clowns
It might be celebrated a little bit differently in each part of the world, but it’s custom for Mardi Gras parades to include jester-like performers dressed as clowns in decadent, colorful costumes. Jenna from The Painted Apron filled her glass vase centerpiece with similar looking clowns, king crowns, beads and sequined masks.
Hurricane Rum Balls
Ideal for serving right alongside king cake or another showstopping Mardi Gras dessert, these hurricane rum balls, made by Stefani of Cupcake Project, can be doubled up as table decor when placed in a glass platter dish—just scatter colored beads around the desserts to match the purple, yellow and green sprinkles of each one.
Colorful Flowers
Sarah of Earning & Saving with Sarah Fuller only used three steps to craft a beautiful flower arrangement for the center of her Mardi Gras table, covering a vase of yellow and white flowers with beads, cutouts and coins.