A Fall Spread

So... what can you do with 6 ornamental pumpkins, 4 sheets of funky paper, 3 bunches of flowers, 2 tealights and 1 medium sized pie pumpkin? I'll tell you... an entire fall themed table setting for under $30.








This past weekend, I got a hankering for a change. I love fall, I love pumpkins (see pumpkin pancake blog from a couple weeks ago), and I love having a pretty table setting. So, I took a couple of hours and headed out to Micheals, World Market, Target and the grocery store on Sunday. I ended up spending a total of $30. So, I started with two ornamental pumpkins and two tealights and one pumpkin carving set.








Take the poky thing from the pumpkin kit (and yes that IS the official name), poke around the stem, then cut and remove the stem. Don't cut any larger then the stem because you may end up with a whole too big for your tealight and you'll have to figure out something else to do with your pumpkin.









Then place your tealight on top of the pumpkin where you want it to go and trace around it with a pen, pencil or thin marker. If you use a thick marker, you may end up with a black line around the edge of the tealight. Then follow the line and make holes with the poky thing. Use the knife to trip to the line. Be careful because you can always trim a little more off, but you can't put any back. Don't gut the pumpkin because insides will help keep the candle from falling all the way inside.











if you are lucky like, me, you can get your wonderful, super strong and totally handsome husband to push the tealight into the hole. if you don't have one of those, then just stand up and put all your weight onto the tealight. You want it to be snug.







And waalaa! You have a pumpkin tealight holder!







Repeat for the second pumpkin.

For the large centerpiece take the medium sized pumpkin and cut out the top like you would if you were going to carve it. Then clean it all out.











Then simply take your flowers and arrange them in the pumpkin. In order to cut down on bacteria form the flowers or pumpkin, put a couple of drops of bleach in the water.







In order to funk up the arrangement, take some funky, bohemian paper and cut leafs out of it.







To make funky place cards, take one of the leaves, print the guests name on them (or print them out on the computer if you have really nasty hand writing like mine). Take a basic straight pin and push it through the leaf and into the pumpkin.









Put it all out on the $10 table clothe you got at Target last year and love, love, love! And you are ready for a dinner party where your guests cancel on you at the last minute. Oh wait, that's not right. :-)








Hope you enjoyed!

bonnie

EDITORS NOTE: If you decide to take my bright advice and leave the pumpkin innards in the pumpkin so that the tea light doesn't fall into the pumpkin... make sure you throw the pumpkin away as soon as it starts getting soft. Why is that? Because if you don't it will literaly thow up all over your favorite table cloth and stink up your entire house to high heaven. Consider yourself warned! ;-)