Thanksgiving feels like a less commercial holiday to me. In the spirit of keeping it that way I like to make table decorations with natural items found right outside my door. If you have a pair of scissors and a few craft items it's easy to create a beautiful, natural looking table that celebrates Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Placecards
Create placecards with the following items: woven bags and kraft paper tags (I purchased mine at Michaels); a piece of Oasis foam; and berries and dried greens from your yard. I cut a small piece of Oasis off the larger piece and inserted it in the bottom of each bag. Oasis helps keep the arrangement upright, but you can do it without it too.
Oasis foam for flower arranging
Then I filled in the guest names on the kraft paper tags and tied them on the bags so I wouldn't have to do that after the plants are in place. I went outside and snipped off lots of little branches and berries (about 6" long) and inserted them into the Oasis. In the arrangement shown I used Winterberry, Lambs Ears, Queen Anne's Lace and seed heads from a wild herb. The whole arrangement is no more than 7" tall!
Votive Candles
I purchased a mason-type jar with a hanging votive candle holder and an open lid for ventilation. I dropped some of my Winterberry in the bottom of the jar, put a candle in the holder and lit it. Voila!
Create 3 or 4 of them for a table that seats 8.
Table Ephemera
Another idea to add a little sparkle to your Thanksgiving table is to collect leaves from the yard and paint them in gold and silver. Ask your guests to name the trees they came from!
Tip: After collecting leaves I let them dry out under a stack of books so they would dry relatively flat.
