I keep seeing people in the spooky community creating these larger than life centerpieces every season on youtube. They dump everything on their dinning room table and create these five foot long -foot and a half high messes, that although sometimes stylish, they are never practical. Not too mention, just not affordable. I get it, they are influencers who are sponsored and paid to use the products. Therefore grand themes must be created. But, a five foot long dinning table does not need to have so much cluttering it in the name of design to the point it's just a glorified showcase. What's the point in creating this showstopper when no one can sit at the table? No one ever seems to stop with three items, or space it out to be a little more on the practical side. You want the layered affect, sure understandable, but layered does not have to mean nor should it, fifty things crammed together in a foot of space to the point you can't see where one thing ends and the next begins. Clutter does not equal creativity.
Seasonal centerpieces can be as simple as a small vase of flowers and a cute table cloth. I created these with the fake flowers I've collected the last few years from Dollarama, a Hallowe'en treat bucket, an empty coffee jar with craft paper, and the table cloth is homemade. I love fake flowers as you can reuse them for different themes and seasons.
The Hallowe'en bucket and darker toned Autumn flowers are what you would expect of the season, but the white flowers in the second photo; daring. You would expect to see them in Spring, and indeed, they are flowers that were part of the Spring and Summer crafting collections. In this case, I had started with the table cloth and matched the rest to it. The fabric was a two meter by two meter end piece that I had sewn a hemming into myself. I loved the pattern of Jack' O' Lanterns, bats, cats and crows holding little trick or treat signs on the deep green background. The orange crafting paper with spiders on it helps to balance the orange of the Jack 'O' Lanterns in the pattern.
As you can see, I do not have a large dinning room table. I have a tiny kitchen table. And I have not let that stop me from doing some simple but impactful centerpieces. I picked the colours for the first one from the spines of the books themselves. All three of the versions of Dracula had some shade of blue hue to them. From there, I just added a few of the fake flowers that mirrored the writing on the spines. The red and black themed, I started with the black table cloth and red runner. Both of which I got at the Dollarama. From there, I just pulled some vampire movies that had a similar colour palette along with a novel that has a black and red cover art. Spider web designs throughout the table cloth, runner and plastic place mat; all tied together with the large spider on the art work of the novel.
Affordable, cute and to the point. Best of all, there is still plenty of space to sit at the table with dinner settings. The black spiderweb table cloth wasn't much more than $4 Canadian, nor was the red spiderweb runner. I've seen similar looking Hallowe'en table cloths on those youtube channels that the youtuber spent $20 or more simply because they got them online or from big named stores. Once again, I understand that they are sponsored and paid to advertise with their products, but just once I'd like to see them offer an alternative for under $5. To see them do an entire room or theme using items that in total only cost them $15-$20, instead of the close to $100 or more they spend per Hallowe'en on table runners and creepy cloth. It's only been in 2023 that I've really seen these spooky influencers reusing their previous little decor items.
Seasonal decorating, does not need to be over the top. And a little can go a very long way.
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