How to Decorate Your Living Room for Thanksgiving

Snap your living room out of the fall doldrums with these easy, inexpensive Thanksgiving decorating tips.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Thanksgiving Candle
• Thanksgiving Figurines
• Baskets
• Copper Or Gold Metallic Spray Paints
• Decorative Buckets
• Fall-hue Toss Pillows
• Miniature Pumpkins
• Potpourri
• Votive Candles
• Apples
• Nuts
• Nutcrackers
• Adhesive Dough
• Fallen Leaves
• Apples
• Baskets

1. Think in terms of appropriate colors for holiday decor: golds, burnt oranges, terra cotta, honey browns, olive greens, rusty reds. Put away accessories (vases, flower arrangements, candles, etc.) that are in pastels or tropical hues.

2. Set out toss pillows in fall colors on sofas and easy chairs. For instance, if your sofa is pastel - say, peach and blue - go with pillows in rust; if it's pale sage or turquoise, go with gold pillows.

3. Change potpourri from floral to a fall scent.

4. Attach fall leaves (you can spray-paint these metallic gold or copper) to picture and mirror frames and lamp shades using sticky tack from an office supply store.

5. Create table decorations that say fall and Thanksgiving: a tiny bucket or basket of acorns and fall leaves, a scented votive candle in a candleholder hollowed out from the center of an apple or miniature pumpkin. A nut bowl with a cracker is also appropriate.

6. Add inexpensive Pilgrim or turkey figurines or candles to your table to underscore the theme.

7. Post kids' Thanksgiving art projects in windows, under glass tops of furniture and, using sticky tack, on walls.

Tips & Warnings

• Set your miniature pumpkin or apple candleholders on a saucer to protect the tabletop from the candle's hot wax and the produce juices.
• Spices and spicy citrus are among the best fall scents for candles and potpourri.

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on 11/22/2005 I make a "smell-good mixture" by putting vanilla, cinnamon sticks, a dash of nutmeg, some dried orange peels, and some pine needles from outside in a pan with some water. Put it on top of your stove or woodstove on a really low simmer. Add water when it starts getting low. Don't let it dry out, though, or it doesn't smell so good. I dump it out and start fresh about every 3 days. You might get some funny looks when people look in the pan to see what you're cooking, but they sure will like the smell.

on 11/22/2005 My home is filled with framed pictures of my family and relatives and during Thanksgiving, I replace the photos in the frames with Thanksgiving pictures that I have taken in previous years. I try to include at least one photo of each person invited for dinner and I take new pictures to use next year. I also use this idea for Christmas, Halloween etc.replacing the regular photos with old Christmas family photos or Halloween photos. Inexpensive,yet special because it is family and memories.

on 11/22/2005 Use those small pumpkins for taper candle holders, remove the stem and top, clean them out inside and insert taper candles. You can decorate them with fall leaves, etc and these make great Thanksgiving candle holders for the table, but beware that they will eventually rot so check them every few days.

on 11/22/2005 Create rustic centerpiece coffee table: Arrange leaves, pumpkins, gourds in a circle with 2 different-size tapers right in middle. Group Indian corn around in blazing fall colors with their husks left on and pulled back a little for flair.