As I look around my neighborhood, it’s pretty clear that autumn is in its last surge of brilliant color.

After years of nursing along tiny stripling shrubs, their reason for existence in my hedgerows is finally obvious.

The tabletop in my dining room is also displaying an autumnal theme — the Falling Leaves Tablescape.

The inspiration for the table setting started with this lovely candle centerpiece featured on Plum Creek Place back in September.

As things usually happen around here, I never quite got around to recreating this exact centerpiece, but I envisioned one that was a little easier for me to put together. Using my normal five-minute centerpiece rule, I pulled the prettiest leafy wreath from my stash and slapped it on a silver platter. I added three extra picks (on sale of course) that had pears and berries on them to help carry out the theme. I centered the hurricane candle in the wreath and began to build around the theme and the colors.

The leafy runner that I picked up at Marshall’s for half-price was an obvious winner, and then I remembered the little owl that my father carved. It would be perfect peeking out from the leaves in the centerpiece. It always makes me happy to use a family piece, and I wish my dad could see how I featured his sweet little owl.

This tablescape is full of newly purchased but thriftily acquired items that I couldn’t resist this fall. There’s the leafy mugs that I used for dips to go with crackers.

And the wooden bowl that was in mark-down hell at Target. I have been waiting for years to get exactly this bowl, and it was half-price off of the marked price!

My friend Bill’s artisan pottery mugs make another entrance, and who cares if they don’t match?

I also bought the maple leaf napkin rings off the sale shelf at Pottery Barn. I wish they still had these; I’d buy another set. The plate stack includes my mother-in-law’s Noritake Aberdeen and Gordon Ramsey soup bowls I just found at Goodwill for $2.00 each. I was lucky to get eight and we will use them every day!

I love the eighties-throwback of the plaid napkins, also purchased at a thrift store. There have been years in my life that I would never have mixed the patterns of this ‘scape together. Being part of the tablescaping community has taught me that harmonizing colors allow for mixing patterns, as long as they are in appropriate scale with each other. These napkins also remind me of the very first tablescape I posted, when my friend Linda entertained us last fall.

I had to fight off Music Man so that he didn’t eat the perfectly ripe pears before I photographed the table.

 

The harvest tealight votives from Partylite are the crowning touch to this ode to autumn. I added flameless candles (also purchased 40% off at Joanne’s) to protect the ceramic votives.

It’s been almost a year of tablescaping for me, and as I get ready for my knee replacement on Thurday (11/7), I can truly say that I have NO reservations about becoming a part of this welcoming community of creative kindred spirits.

Be sure to stop by to visit the creative bloggers at The Scoop at Confessions of a Plate Addict, We Call It Olde at We Call It Junkin’, Centerpiece Wednesday at The Style Sisters,  Let’s Dish with Cuisine Kathleen,  Open House Party with No Minimalist Here,  and Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps on the Porch.

Got my bags, got my reservations,
Spent each dime I could afford.
Like a child in wild anticipation,
I long to hear that, “All aboard!”

Music and lyrics by Bud Green, Les Brown and Ben Homer (1944)