A festive tablescape

This Thanksgiving we are lucky enough to have some family come to visit us. With Craig's crazy retail schedule this time of year can be a bit unpredictable. Since we weren't flying solo this year I wanted to put up a few decorations around the house. Surprisingly, pumpkins are hard to find after Halloween! I was able to score a few small ones and some colorful squash to hide all around the house. Here's a little peek at how I made my dining room festive for the upcoming holiday...

I'm not one for overly dramatic tables or mantles, I like to keep it simple. Just one afternoon and it was done! No fuss :)

First I had my sweet husband chop down the perfect branch for me - I mean really, isn't he the absolute best?! I'm sure that part of it is that he loves to use his power tools (as I believe you saw in yesterday's post, and many more to come) and if I do say so myself, he's not too hard on the eyes while using them. Just saying.

I ended up painting the branch copper, which made it POP on top of my dark purple runner (from William-Sonoma if you're curious).

I hollowed out a few pumpkins and filled them with candle wax. I usually have this in bulk around my house because I tend to make lots and lots of candles BUT you can easily find this at Michael's or any other craft store. Just put some into a microwave safe container and melt. Make sure to do this in small intervals of time otherwise you might burn it. I usually start with :30 - 1:00 and see how it looks, stir and repeat. 

**Note: after having these on my table for a few days the pumpkin started to dry out and pulled away from the wax. These are perfect to do the day before, but no more than a day or two before having people over.

I really love purple and green together on Thanksgiving, I'm not really sure why but that's why I chose the green tapers here. I had some taper candle holders from Ikea that I lost (err.) so I just used some small glass votive holders filled with rice to hold up the candle and tied some twine around it. Can you say ''Easy''?! This is also useful if you want to have tapers at varying heights - you can just cut the bottom of the candle off and no one will ever see it. Perfect for visual interest! 

Did any of you set up something special for your guests? I just love the holidays...I hope you guys have the BEST time with your friends and family this week! xox