Since mov­ing in our home a lit­tle over a year ago, we have done sev­er­al DIY projects togeth­er as a fam­i­ly. Most of which I regret not doc­u­ment­ing. My favorite project to date was the din­ing room table we built as a fam­i­ly. I did cap­ture a few of the spe­cial moments of us build­ing as a fam­i­ly but I cer­tain­ly wish I had more of the process to share with you all.

Any­way, all feel­ings aside, I had nev­er had a table like this before. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 7 ft long and can seat up to 8 peo­ple. Need­less to say, that is A LOT of space to fill when try­ing to curate a beau­ti­ful tablescape. I love the way the din­ing area looks with the table all set up and pret­ty for the sea­son but place set­tings for that many peo­ple can become expen­sive very quickly. 

I have to get pret­ty thrifty to make some­thing like this work for our bud­get and trust me…if I can do it you cer­tain­ly can too! This is the col­lec­tion of things I found around my house that had a nat­ur­al feel.

Step ONE: TEXTILES

I want to encour­age you to step out­side of your box on this one. It is easy to assume that you need a table­cloth or run­ner to cre­ate the per­fect tablescape…FALSE! The truth is, there are MANY options! In this case I used a blan­ket scarf from the Good­will for $3.99.…yep I used a scarf! There are sooo many for­got­ten tex­tile in sec­ond hand stores its unre­al. Go on a hunt, look for fall col­ors, pat­terns or just any­thing that speaks to your heart.

I loved the pat­tern and frayed edges of this one. I angled it slight­ly just for fun, it does­n’t have to cov­er every edge,. Trust me, allow­ing your beau­ti­ful wood to show isn’t going to take away from this eclec­tic look!

Step TWO:LAYERS

This is where the mag­ic hap­pens. I usu­al­ly always start with place­mats but believe it or not they are not always nec­es­sary. In this case, I had some charg­ers that I found at the Dol­lar Tree! I loved the bub­ble trim detail and the per­fect gold­en col­or screams fall. Please DO NOT spend an arm and a leg on charg­ers. There are plen­ty of options at dol­lar stores and Hob­by Lob­by that wont break the bank. 

Anoth­er ele­ment I want­ed to add for lay­er­ing was old books. My vision was for a very nat­ur­al feel to this look. The aged col­or of the pages and print­ed text just brought this cozy, well-worn vibe to the table. So, rather than my bright white dish­es I opt­ed for using an old set of ency­clo­pe­dias for lay­er­ing. I snagged 13 of these for $2.50! (I just recent­ly dis­cov­ered a thrift store in my home­town that just gives them away fro FREE!)

Sim­ply lay them out on your charger.…oh my good­ness isn’t that charm­ing? I felt like it removed the need for a plate but still added a much need­ed lay­er, plus they dou­ble a good con­ver­sa­tion starter.

Step THREE: NAPKINS

This step is a no brain­er. What is a tablescape with­out nap­kins? Right? But you see here’s the thing…napkins can get expen­sive. I opt­ed for plain white tea tow­els from the Wal­mart kitchen area. I for­get the exact cost but they were some­where around .98 cents each! These could eas­i­ly be spruced up with some sten­cils and paint. I’m even think­ing of going back and tea-soak­ing them just to age em’ a bit. 

I chose a sol­id, neu­tral col­or so it did­n’t make the space too busy. The chunky pat­tern of the scarf adds plen­ty of char­ac­ter with­out mak­ing it too busy.

I fash­ioned make shift rings from paper flo­ral wire. Sim­ply snip, wrap and twist your wire around the nap­kin. This look can eas­i­ly be accom­plished with jute twine or even a lit­tle bit of raffia.

Place your nap­kins in the crease of your book!

Step FOUR: NAME CARDS

I use the term “name card” loose­ly. I don’t lit­er­al­ly mean place name cards on your set­tings. What I real­ly mean is “that lit­tle some­thing extra to add a spe­cial touch” Whether it’s an actu­al name card writ­ten on a tiny chalk­board, wood­en cutout let­ters, lit­tle indi­vid­ual pump­kins, or in this case, pinecones; it’s just that lit­tle extra spe­cial ele­ment that real­ly brings the look togeth­er. I loved the pinecones for this step because again we’re talkin CHEAP! I lit­er­al­ly snagged these from my sis­ters yard and placed then cen­tered on top of the napkins. 

Step FIVE: CENTERPIECE 

This is your final and per­haps the most vital part of cre­at­ing the per­fect fall tablescape. Maybe I am doing this all back­wards, I don’t real­ly know, but for me per­son­al­ly I like start­ing with the set­tings first so I can visu­al­ly see how much space I am work­ing with in the center.

Go on a scav­enger hunt around your home look­ing for things that say “nat­ur­al” Some exam­ples might be, sticks, antlers, flow­ers, gourds, pump­kins, pinecones, ect

Mix your find­ings in with oth­er ele­ments like vas­es, can­dle sticks, or nat­u­ral­ly worn books to give it an eclec­tic feel. Think vari­ants in height, tex­tures and color! 

-PIN FOR LATER-