Elizabeth and I always look forward to the holiday celebrations……especially Thanksgiving. Like our Pilgrim and Indian ancestors who gathered in late 1621 to thank the Lord and feast together, we along with most Americans, will soon be with family and friends on this special day. Let us not forget to express our gratitude to God and to those we hold dear.
We really enjoy decorating together, so today was tons of fun!! We wanted to create a simple, inexpensive, and beautiful Thanksgiving centerpiece for the dining table. And we desired to make it using (mostly) things we already had or were “free” from nature like pinecones, berries, leaves…..whatever. Now who can’t get excited about that?
Always on the lookout for natural finds, we picked up varying sized pine cones here and there. Elizabeth found and purchased some gourds at Walmart, and I bought the bittersweet fromWindermere Farms a few weeks ago. We also spied bittersweet at Whole Foods over the weekend for only $24.99 (You may be lucky and find it growing along a fence row like when I was growing up.)
The table runner, which has seen much use, was purchased several years ago from Simon Pearce, and the candles were also “a save” from a prior holiday table arrangement. Now that we had discovered some things we could use, it was time to get started.
First, we measured our table and runner to determine how long/wide to make the centerpiece. (Make sure to leave plenty of room on all sides for your place settings.)
Since we had only 3 candles, we decided to elevate the center one by placing it on top of a styrofoam piece. (You could use any number of things to do this.) Then we placed the other two candles equidistant from the center one. (Look at your table size to determine how far apart you want to place them. We set ours in the middle third of the table.)
Next, we carefully placed the bittersweet around the candles. (Let us warn you, the berries are very fragile.)
Then we began adding pinecones around the center candle – starting with the larger ones on the bottom. We continued stacking them on top of each other until the styrofoam base and the bottom inch of the candle were covered. (Since they are a bit prickly, the cones sort of stick together making them fairly easy to stack.)
We then took our gourds and positioned them among the entwined bittersweet. Probably, we could have used a few more, but since we had only 6…….oh well….. and did not want to run back to the store…..we used what we had. 🙂
Stepping back to view our design, we lit the candles and here you see it! Truly, this was easy….easy….and we will enjoy it until Thanksgiving Day arrives. And the best part is…. our table centerpiece is done!
What do you think? We are super excited and hope that you are inspired to look around your home and yard discovering what you can do, with what you already have. Send us pictures of your table creations. We would be delighted to see them.