Fall Foliage

I'm sure I've said it before, but Autumn is my most favorite of the seasons.

Winter is a very close second, but Fall wins out since you don't have to buy any presents (though I REALLY love giving/getting gifts) and there's a holiday dedicated to food...uh... I mean... giving thanks.

The temps are finally getting crisp, at least in the early mornings and evenings, here in the Hill Country and that inspires me to decorate the front porch with hay bales and pumpkins, fill the wood box in preparation of the first crackling fire, crochet something, put on a big pot of potato soup and snuggle under a blanket with a good book and a bowl of homemade caramel corn.

In my own home I use an eclectic mix of decorating styles, but Primitive decorating really appeals to me and using natural textiles and botanicals whenever possible helps with that look.

First, let me say, "I'm no professional". I've gotten my floral arrangement skill through heredity, magazine articles and online tutorials. But I've found that there are some basic rules you can follow and anyone can make a nice floral arrangement, even if you don't have a natural gift for it, just by following the guidelines.


Today I want to share some ideas for fall centerpieces. I've used these for special occasions and dinners but they're easy and affordable enough to use for your everyday seasonal decorating.

My favorite container for floral centerpieces is a natural gourd or pumpkin. I prefer the "pie" pumpkin size - these are typically smaller than a volleyball.

When you pick your pumpkins, look for those without a lot of blemishes, and no soft spots. Pick a nice round one with a pretty stem and a flat solid base to set it on.

First you'll use a sharp knife to cut off the "lid". Do this carefully so that you have an even cut and can use the lid as part of the floral design. Don't cut off too much, but be sure you clear the stem completely.

Scoop out the insides with a spoon. Feel no guilt over not saving the seeds to roast later. You've already got too much on your plate.

Take a block of Oasis foam (the kind that holds water for fresh flowers - not silk or dried flowers) and gently press it against the hollowed out bowl of your pumpkin to make an impression in the foam the size of the bowl. Do this as close to the edge of the foam as possible so you can get the most use from it. Use a sharp knife (I just use a paring knife) to cut away the excess foam inside the impression line and push the foam into the bowl of the pumpkin. Use the extra foam to cut wedges to fill in the edges if necessary. When the bowl of your pumpkin is solidly filled, soak the foam with water. Keep pouring it in until it won't hold another drop. And then pour in some more. Normally, you soak the foam in water for 20 minutes first and then put it in a container - so you need to keep pouring the water in until you're sure it's thoroughly saturated. I use the foam from Wal-Mart that has a flower preservative in it, if you don't, then put flower food in the water you're soaking your foam with.


Next, sort your flowers. For 5 pie pumpkin sized arrangements, I purchased two $15 bouquet bunches and one $8 bunch of mums (or another button type flower) for filler at Costco. Take these apart and sort them by flower type. Then you can mentally determine how much of each flower you'll have for each pumpkin if you want your arrangements to be very similar.


Have a nice, sharp pair of scissor or pruning shears available. Some like to use a knife, but I'm fond of a scissor action. Since I'm doing five arrangements that I want to be similar in style and size, I assemble them all at the same time and I cut my flowers as I go, not ahead of time. Be sure you cut at least a half inch off your stems and I cut them all under water. For roses, this is especially important - they will get an air bubble that prevents them from taking up fresh water and they'll wilt faster. Also - smash or break the end of a really woody stem at the end so that it can take up more water. I do this with the sunflowers.

Rule of thumb #1 I've seen for "round" arrangements is to have the overall height of the arrangement be twice the height of your container. Just eyeball that measurement and place the tallest element or flower first. For my pumpkins, this was the "cat-tail" like stalky things. and the sunflowers.

Rule #2 is to work in odd numbers - this is the most pleasing to your artistic eye. I really only wanted one of these cat-tail things and sunflowers for each pumpkin, but I had a couple leftover. So I made my largest pumpkin a little fuller and bigger (for my buffet serving table) and the other four were just slightly smaller (for the guest tables.) You can see in the photo that one of the pumpkins has two of the cat-tail things - I used the two smallest cat-tails for this one and staggered their heights. The largest arrangement (far right side of the photo and cut off) actually has three of the cat-tail things.


Same rule applies for the sunflowers I used. I was just going to use one per pumpkin, but had a couple leftover. I paired up the smallest flower heads and made sure I used different colors (one orange, one yellow) when I used an even number.

Next, start filling in with your smaller flowers keeping the "round" shape by varying the length of the stems. Keep the stems long enough to go as deep in the foam as possible for stability. I tried to group them together by flower type, making a section of color rather than a confetti sprinkle of color. Spread your colors apart - try not to put yellow flowers next to yellow flowers - unless of course you're doing a monochromatic arrangement. I'll give examples of monochromatic arrangements in another post - I did "gold" arrangements for my in-laws 50th Anniversary dinner and ALL of the flowers were essentially yellow.


Here are the nearly finished pumpkins. I added a few more filler flowers (mums) after this photo was taken. The "lids" are simply leaned against the side. You can use a floral pick or a bamboo skewer to help hold it in place if necessary. Prop the lid on a side that might hide a blemish in your pumpkin or a bare spot in your flowers.

These will keep pretty well for about a week, but best if you refrigerate them. Make sure you keep watering them. Be aware the the lids may mildew and shrivel a little bit - When they aren't on display, I put the whole arrangement in the refrigerator but put the lids in a zip top plastic bag with a folded up wet paper towel.

Here is a finished arrangement on a guest table.

For a table runner, I bought three yards of beige burlap and split it lengthwise at the fold, then roughly split each of those two pieces in half. I pulled several threads on all sides (except the selvages) to give a frayed edge. Warning: fraying burlap is messy. This made enough runners for four six-foot guest tables and two buffet serving tables. (Or four roughly 9-foot runners. for about $9.) The standard brown burlap would look great too, but they were out and I thought this color would give a more "feminine" look to this Women's Ministry dinner. I'm going to use them again for a wedding coming up in about two weeks. (I'll be using white pumpkins for containers and hope to use predominantly purple flowers (the bride's favorite color).



To complete this table-scape I used candles surrounded by dry dear corn (which I have used before) and scattered giant fake acorns down the runner. (I've since found these giant acorns in real life! Seriously, they're acorns the size of walnuts! Everything really IS bigger in Texas...)

The following arrangements use baskets rather than fresh pumpkins for containers.

This first arrangement was made to display at church on the actual weekend of my inlaw's 50th Anniversary at the end of this past summer. It's constructed very similarly to the pumpkin arrangements with groupings of flowers by style and color. I used a CD basket with a hinged lid out of my office for the container. It was a little tougher to use because the basket has two sections for storing discs. First I lined the sections with plastic bags and then filled them tightly with the oasis foam. I secured the lid in an upright position (like an open treasure chest) by using a wired floral pick twisting the wire through the weave of the basket lid and then the pick into the foam.


The almost exact arrangement below was made for our neighboring church on their opening weekend after a long building project. I purchased this fabric lined basket for the arrangement on a great sale and lined it with a folded down trashcan liner filled tightly with the oasis foam.

The cost for the 5 pumpkin arrangements was about $50 including the pumpkins and foam.
The cost for the two basket arrangements were between $40 and $50. (One was cheaper because I already had a basket and foam on hand at home and got the basket back from the inlaw's when the arrangement was "done" being enjoyed.)

Go ahead... do a quick online search for similar arrangements... (or ideas). They're well over $100 and don't include the love and free creative outlet and blessing.

If you haven't made your own floral arrangement before give it a shot and add a link to a photo of your creation in the comments section.