Free Fall Tablescape

It's finally starting to feel like fall around here.  The nights are nippy.  The days are just warm-ish and the trees look like they might actually change color instead of just dying.  It's magical ;)

So.  I rummaged through my house and came up with a wholly new (to me) thing.  A tablescape.  For fall.  For FREE.  I know!  (Did you just hear Monica?)

I've never really had time to do those little, pretty, simple things that make a space more homey.  The last house was huge, and always taunting me with yet another chore not done.  Kids were smaller and much more needful of mommy's time.  Basically, I lived in a sorta-decorated-but-not-really-how-I-wanted house.

Now, with the new place, I've actually got some time, along with means, to do the prettier, homey little things that really have no purpose other than to make me smile.

Like I said, I scrounged around, and came up with the following items:

1 sterling silver tray (a wedding gift that I have never actually used)
1 pewter candlestick with a bent candle
1 small vanilla-scented candle lamp
3 ceramic pumpkins from the Dollar Tree that have been floating around for a couple of years
A bunch of beheaded silk mums
An assortment of decorative picks stolen from the topiary tree my mom gave me last week
A handful of preserved and silk leaves

I did have to rub the tray a bit to remove some of the tarnish of time and neglect.  Not too much, because I really loved the patina.  Just enough so my hands wouldn't turn black from handling the thing!

I put the tray in the middle of the table.  Since we eat here daily, whatever I did had to be low so we could see each other's pretty faces at dinner!  And portable, on the off chance I decided to put food on the table, rather than dishing it all up at the stove.  So, tray on table.  Check.

Next, I tossed artfully arranged the leaves on the bottom of the tray.  No real rhyme or reason, though I did try to make sure that two of the same shape/color were not touching.  I'm crazy like that. 

I then stuck the candle elements on the tray, along with the ceramic pumpkins.  Randomly stuck in Carefully arranged the picks around the candles and pumpkins.  They were all wired, so I was able to bend the leaves/berries/feathers/etc at my whim to both cover the stems and to whimsically flow around the solid elements of the arrangement.

Though my camera situation has not improved (still stuck with the phone!), you can see that I accomplished what I set out to do.  Biggest payoff?  Stanky walked in the house, glanced at the table and said 'Wow mom, that looks really cool'. Right before he tooted, dropped his smelly shoes on the floor and sauntered upstairs. 

I'll talk what I can get. :)