Celebrate Thanksgiving in style by incorporating the beauty of fall into your Thanksgiving dinner. The trick to creating a gorgeous table setting is to make use of fall foliage, autumn colors, and fruits of the season. Using warm colors reflects the hospitality of the holiday season and will definitely make your guests feel comfortable and right at home.

For an autumn-themed centerpiece, use a traditional cornucopia or create a floral arrangement with fiery red and deep gold flowers. Instead of a vase you can use a hollowed-out pumpkin to hold your floral centerpiece. Keep your centerpiece at a height that will allow everyone in the dinner table an unobstructed view of everyone else. If your dinner table is small, keep your centerpiece small. Remember — you’ll need to have room for other dishes and condiments! For a finishing touch, scatter nuts, sprigs of wheat, berries, and dry leaves around the centerpiece and in strategic parts of the dinner table, but make sure that all foliage are clean before putting them on the table.

Set the table with a table cloth, runner, place mates, and napkins in autumn-themed prints and color-coordinated solids. Don’t use too much printed fabric so your table doesn’t look too “busy” and to draw attention to your centerpiece. Place accents onto your napkins by putting on napkin rings that reflect the season, such as wooden ones with hand-painted leaves. As for the dishes, use your fine china or dishes that match the colors of your whole table setting.

For a relaxed Thanksgiving day, make sure you plan your table setting and the evening’s menu ahead of time. Set the table a day before so that you can make some last-minute touches and additions.

 

If you want something a Christmas tree that’s different from the traditional one and resembles something more like a piece of art, you’ll see that there’s a fine line between just another Christmas tree and an original sculpture. Try out these decorating ideas for an offbeat, do-it-yourself Christmas tree.

PINE CONE TREE

To create a pine cone tree, all you need are pine cones of the same size. Arrange them in a conical shape and glue them together until it resembles a Christmas tree, then glue on holly berries and ribbons as Christmas decorations. If you think the pine cone tree looks too natural for you, you can spray the pine cones with metallic silver or gold paint before gluing them together.

THE CANDY CANE TREE

The idea behind the candy cane tree is to form a teepee frame made out of long candy canes. Create a frame with a conical armature, then get smaller candy canes and put them around the tree frame such that the hooks are upside-down and stick out like branches.

THE BEAD TREE

A bead tree is perhaps the simplest tree you can make. Essentially, this is a cone of paper wrapped with long strands of beads which are glued to it. The fun part about making this tree is that you can let your imagination run wild and use any materials you like, such as glass beads, pearls, and novelty beads. Add ribbons or fine-foil brain around the beads for that special holiday flair.