Thrifty Autumn Centerpieces

So my daughter’s 1st birthday is next week and we are having a Autumn Harvest party for her….I know, I know, you’re thinking I should be doing Sesame Street or Yo Gabba Gabba…but the way I see it is there will be MANY more years for her to choose her birthday party theme- this one is mine :)  We’ll be serving fall-ish food- Carrot Soup, Chili, Turkey/Stuffing/Cranberry-mayo sub…I’m salivating just thinking about it :)  I will post pictures of all the decor and ideas I’ve put together after the party, but for now, here are the centerpieces I put together for the tables.
So off to the dollar tree I went, unsure of what exactly I was looking for.  I picked up these hideous looking styrofoam pumpkins and these even nicer fake flowers in the fancy flower pots (sense the sarcasm?)

I know they don’t look like much now but with the help of my new favorite love- Valspar - They started to look MUCH better!  But first things first.  I cut the a whole out of the top of each pumpkin just big enough for the pot to fit inside.  Then came the spray paint.  I used Valspar Metallic on these pumpkins.  I also used a gloss spray paint for the flowers to give them a little pizzazz.  These dried really quick. I’m not sure if it was because the styrofoam soaks it in quickly or because of the warm day…or both, but these were sprayed several times and dried in about an hours time.  Next came the embellishments (my favorite part)!  I cut strips of ribbon just long enough to go from the top of the opening to the center of the bottom of the pumpkin.  There were 10 ridges in the pumpkin so I cut 10 pieces of ribbon.  I used double sided tape hot glue to get them to stick.  The next step was putting the flower pots- with the styrofoam still in it but without the flowers into the pumpkin.  I had found some Spanish moss at the dollar tree awhile back and had planned on using it for a wreath but got an idea to use it on these cuties…colored the top of the styrofoam black (“dirt”) and began my floral arrangement.  I didn’t use the bunch of flowers in their entirety.  I actually pulled off the bigger-nicer- flowers  off and used those in the center. I then embellished with these pretty leaves I got at Michaels on sale for $2.99.  The end product came out pretty sweet if I do say so myself :)  We’ll be having 5 tables of 8 so I made 5 of these bad boys. 

I had painted and glued ribbon to 3 more pumpkins than I actually needed so decided to make a cute topiary with some extra silk hydrangeas I had lying around and some beads on a vine that I had bought from Michaels (also intended for another project lol).  For this, I just glued the pumpkins one on top of the other and then stuck an extra flower pot with styrofoam minus the flowers in the top pumpkin…added the hydrangeas…hot glued the beaded vine around each center and voila! Magnifico! :)

           
I’ll be adding my other decorations and ideas as I finish them.  Can’t wait for her party :)