Fall/Holiday Table Centerpiece

Disclosure: this post may contain affiliate links, which means I may make a commission if you decide to make a purchase through one of my links, at no cost to you.

Having never had a dining room table of my own, this year’s home ownership (and the recent addition of my dining room table) comes with yet another first:  I get to choose a beautiful table setting for the holidays.

To start, I picked up this beige runner from Target. You may not be able to see it too well in all photos, but it has a silver thread running through it, so it adds a light shimmer to the table top.

On top of the runner, I have placed varying sizes of candle holders that I picked up from Michael’s for $3 to $10 each. The perfectionist in me would like to point out that there was simply no way to get this set to match. The stripes are crooked on some of them, the width of the stripes is inconsistent, and because they are made with foil leaf (I assume, I didn’t make them), there are smudges here and there that I can’t do anything about. But they add shimmer and shine regardless and were the perfect silvery-gold to go with the runner. So, into my cart they went, and on my table they sit.

I only had small votives to light at the time of this picture, but it seems that it was a happy accident that I couldn’t find larger candles. The flicker of the tiny light bounces delicately off of the multitude of shiny surfaces, leaving a soft glow in the center of the table. I saved myself some time and money by using what I’ve already got – what’s not to love about that?

While I’m a sucker for shimmer, I also wanted a bit of nature to balance the setting. So, I took a cue from my surroundings and tucked in some pine cones between each candle holder. Tip:  If you are taking pine cones from your back yard like I did rather than purchasing them at a craft store (where for some reason they all reek of cinnamon), be sure to bake them in your oven for a few minutes at about 200 degrees. This will kill off any tiny insects that may live inside them as well as open up the cone, which fans out all of the scales (yes, I had to look that up – scales is the appropriate term) to their max.

And voilà. A few minutes of rummaging through my back yard for the “good” pine cones (my criteria is a short list of non-crushed and not near Colby’s bathroom area), and I have a fall/Christmas centerpiece that I won’t have to bother with again for two months.

What about you? Have you begun gathering up your Christmas decor yet?

Linking to a few parties.