Farmhouse Dough Bowl Decorating Ideas

I have a giant dough bowl on the center of my dining room table.

Affectionately called the rowboat by my husband.

I adore it and it gets on my nerves all at the same time.

It's amazing because it fills up the space and looks cute and vintage and the texture is amazing and it's a statement piece.

But.

Don't you love a decorating post that starts with a coordinating conjunction?

But I never really am sure what to put in it.

Sometimes I fill it up and it looks like utter nonsense and I roll my eyes at myself.

And then?

Every now and then on the first day of spring with the birds chirping and the sun shining and the day bright and full of promise….

…I fill it with something amazing.

Just. Like. This.

Jasmine.

I wish you could smell my dining room right now.

It smells like a little bit of spring.

I found these pots at Trader Joe's for $5.99 a piece. The dough bowl is over 4 feet long, so I needed five pots to fill the center with extra spillage.

But.

But how do you put the pots in there without ruining the bottom of the dough bowl when you water the plants.

No worries.

I got us.

Here's the solution.

Large freezer bags.

They are sturdy and flexible and fit easily around the bottom of the plant with extra room.

All I did was roll down the sides of the freezer bag.

Slip the freezer bag around the bottom of the jasmine pot.

Then place it in the dough bowl.

Here's the first pot in the center.

And.

(total aside: another coordinating conjunction that I love).

And I repeated the same process with all five jasmine plants.

All jasmine pots are not created equal.

Some have more jasmine on one side than the other.

I turned the plants this way and that way to make sure there was extra spillage on all sides of the dough bowl.

Then I pinched off any stems that were too long.

The jasmine will continue to grow and bloom in place.

You just don't want to add too much water because you don't want to have standing water in the bags.

Here's my finished centerpiece.

It only took me five minutes to create the entire centerpiece.

You could add any plant to the center, just make sure it's one that's a continuous bloomer so it lasts longer.

And now?

Want some other dough bowl inspiration?

Here are a few more things I've added to my dough bowl over the years.

In the fall, I added pumpkins.

Sometimes all the same type of pumpkin.

Like this.

And sometimes an assorted variety.

Like this.

I've filled it with pinecones.

Like this.

And pine cones and fabric-covered balls and ribbon.

Like this.

At Christmas time, I fill it with tons of white ornaments.

All different shapes and sizes.

Like this.

I've also (I couldn't find a picture of it) stacked books from end to end it in.

Here are a few more ideas of things to decorate a dough bowl with:

faux branches
ivy
shells
faux fruit and eucalyptus
moss
dried hydrangea
apples
mercury glass
painted white faux fruit
dried lavender

And on and on and on.

Can you see why I adore it?

So much potential just waiting to be decorated.

Now, how about you?

Do you have a dough bowl and if so—what's your relationship status?

Feel free to drop all the dough bowl decorating ideas below.

It takes a village to decorate a table. 🙂

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Posted On: March 22, 2021