Decorating For Autumn: Fall Tablescapes and Floral Arrangements

The days are shortening and the nights grow cooler. Autumn is soon arrived in all her natural splendor, and with the crispness of fall the foliage explodes with color.

This is a time to warm the inside of your home with all the brilliant golds, amber oranges and deep reds she has to offer.

Seasonal décor is a wonderful opportunity to play up the change of seasons and set a mood for holiday activities and spending time together with family and friends at home.

Switch out some of your home accent pieces, add a couple of new accessories and put out a couple of nice fall flower arrangements to give any room in your home the look of the season.

Welcome Autumn with Flower Arrangements

Fall is a time to bring color into your home and you certainly have plenty of choices, whether you choose fresh cut flowers from your garden or design a decorative tablescape using pumpkins, floral foam and silk or other floral arrangement supplies that will last through Thanksgiving.

For fall decorating, choose flowers with yellows, reds, and oranges. Roses and Chrysanthemums are always popular. Or, pick lilies in yellow or orange and long-stemmed Gladiolas. Go outdoors and find dried grasses and leaves to give your arrangement the finishing touch.

Mix things up, trying one idea or theme for a fall wreath on your front door, another in the garden and yet others for tablescapes and fall accents inside the home. The variety of plants, flowers, fall foliage and other autumn decorations gives you endless possibilities.

Preparing Your Fall Floral Arrangements

To make your tablescape or floral arrangement last, it’s worth taking time to prepare your materials properly. Fresh flowers should be hardened by re-cutting the stems and placing them in fresh water for at least an hour before placing into your vase or floral foam base.

Stems also need attention. If you use flowers or foliage with thick stems, split them so that needles and wire used to hold things in place can easily penetrate the woody stems. Thin stems can be re-enforced by binding thicker stems to them with floral tape or wire.

And of course, once you have your fresh fall floral arrangement completed, be sure to add water to the container every day and mist with water to keep them fresh; if you plan wisely, you can simply replace flowers in your arrangement to extend the lifespan of your fall arrangements.

Creative Fall Flower Arrangements

Choosing materials and fresh foliage for your floral arrangements and tablescapes can become a fun adventure as you go outdoors to gather grasses, leaves, seed pods, interesting gourds and squashes, pine cones, cattails, goldenrod, berry branches and other fall plants in bloom or turning color.

Seasonal decorating touches like tablescapes and flower arrangements present a perfect opportunity to experiment and get creative; you can always start over if something doesn’t turn out the way you want or just chalk your mistakes up to learning by experience; next year you’ll do even better!

Fall Flower Arrangement Tips

• Display your fall flower arrangements prominently where family, friends and guests can enjoy their natural beauty and get into the spirit of fall and upcoming holidays and festivities.
• A fall tablescape or floral arrangement makes the perfect centerpiece for your dining table. Be sure to keep your floral design low so that people aren’t ‘separated’ by it; this is one of the most common mistakes people make when designing floral arrangements for the dining table.
• Fall bouquets are great for decorating a table in your entry or foyer, end tables and coffee tables in your family and living room spaces, giving your guest bedroom and bathrooms a fresh look for the autumn season or adding a focal point on display shelves in any room in your home.
• A fall wreath will give your home’s front door entrance a nice touch of autumn, greeting guests with color and warmth.
• Pumpkins are a fall favorite and make a great base for flower arrangements; you can cut the top to create a vessel inside which you can place floral foam to support your flowers, using sunflowers, orange or red roses, berry branches, dried grasses, etc. to design your arrangement.
• Fall fruits such as grapes, apples, mini pumpkins, etc. can also make great fall tablescapes and floral arrangements. Use candles or votives to give your fall tablescape an added touch of color and warmth.
• Wicker baskets are also great for fall floral designs; try using chrysanthemums, sunflowers, tiny pumpkins, white gourds, gerberas, acorns, dry ferns and other natural fall plants to create a decorative fall basket.
• Use a mat of moss on a table or fireplace mantel to create a nice base to arrange orange and white pumpkins in various sizes and shapes, using one larger pumpkin as a focal point, with smaller sugar pumpkins, fruits, etc. arranged around it.
• Remember to decorate outdoors also; find a corner on the porch, a bench, pedestal or table in the garden, etc. that you can use to display some pumpkins and fall foliage arranged to fill in the garden as flowers and other plants begin to die out during autumn.
• You can place a pumpkin on any pedestal, urn or container in your garden. Put some rocks or bark underneath to keep if from rotting too quickly from heavy morning dew and fall rain storms.