You may have seen this but I just ran across it in our local newspaper. It is in a column called Donna's Day which is a sort of hohum thing, but I thought this idea was really neat. She used this for individual placecards but the centerpiece ideas would be endless.
For Christmas she used gold foil cupcake liners. Purchase large red carnations that are fully open and cut them with a 2" stem to start with. She used a cover from a small spray can like Pam, etc. to set in the center of the liner. I would use those small throwaway plastic deli containers that you get tartar sauce etc. in because I have tons of them. Soak floral foam (not the green stuff but the grey stuff) with water and cut a piece to fit the little plastic container. Now cut the stem of the carnation so that the flower sits right at the edge of the top of the liner and looks like the cupcake top.
For a placecard, she got the fairly heavy colored wire and pushed the straight end into the flower and foam. She coiled the top several times to hold the name card.
I hope you can picture this because it is really cute. The ideas with this for showers, weddings, etc. etc. would be great. You could also make a pyramid of them for the center of a table and then serve matching cupcakes.
Merry Christmas everyone
Lily

oh, I can totally picture it......sounds absolutely adorable!!! I bet you could use a big open rose too......like you said, the possibilities would be endless. Very creative idea. Would be cute to have a bunch of them with name tags and table numbers at a wedding and put them on a huge tiered cupcake stand.