Inexpensive Fall Centerpiece

It's the 4th Friday of the month and you know what that means! It's Farmhouse Friday!

This month's theme du jour (or whatever is French for the word month) is APPLES.

OK, I just Googled how to say "month" in French and it turns out to be "mois" which is way too close to the word moist. I don't know about you, but the word moist totally skeeves me out. Shudder.

Back to un-moist apples. Love them. Love to eat them. Love to use them in my fall decor.

Why?

They're inexpensive. They can be found anywhere. They come in all different shapes, sizes and colors.

Red, green, yellow, pink . . .

These babies are Gala apples. Beautiful and tasty Gala apples.

Heck, you can just run to the grocery store and buy a bag. Throw them in a ironstone soup tureen

on top of a bushel basket lid and you're good to go.

Instant inexpensive fall centerpiece.

Sure it's more festive to drive out to the country to an orchard, get dressed up in your new boots and plaid scarf, eat a few dozen powdered donuts and pick them yourself.

But in the end, an apple is an apple and they pretty much look the same as the ones at the grocery store. Although I do like to support my local farmers, so there's that.

This week, while recuperating from the broken arm I decided to add a light early fall look to my dining room.

Besides the apples, I added some dried hydrangea to my buffet table/dresser.

If you haven't dried hydrangeas before, I discussed my super easy and scarily simple way to dry them in my Lazy Girl's Guide To Drying Hydrangeas.

The vase is setting on my horse statue that I bought last year at a garage sale.

I guess it used to have a clock next to it, but I just stacked some books with fall colored covers next to him and put the jar of hydrangea on top. And added an apple and a wooden block and tackle pulley thingie.

On the other side of the room next to the windows I put this heavy barn vent on top of a more formal looking cabinet for an eclectic farmhouse look.

I bought that thing five years ago and never really knew what to do with it. If I had only known it would look cool in the dining room with a homemade boxwood wreath on it, I could have saved myself five years of tripping over the stupid thing.

BTW, don't tell my husband or my doctor, but I hoisted that incredibly heavy wooden vent up onto that cabinet all by myself. Broken arm and all.

I had it stored in my office upstairs, so I drug the thing to the top of the steps with my one good arm, tied a rope to one end of it and then proceeded to slide the thing down the steps very slowly, holding onto the rope so it wouldn't go too fast.

Then I wrangled it into the dining room by scooting it inch by inch by inch.

Once in the dining room, I then lifted it up six inches onto a stool and then from there onto the top of a chair, then onto some books I had placed on top of the chair. And then finally lifted it the last few inches up onto the top of the cabinet.

I can't normally lift 50 pounds with one hand, but I could lift it six inches or so. Took probably an hour to get it there and a little bit of swearing, but darn it looks good!

Looking for more apple decor ideas and inspiration:

• Gala apples and a gigormouse pumpkin were the stars of my fall porch a few years ago.
• I used apples as early fall decor last year on my kitchen table by putting them in a vintage Fire King apple bowl - Festive Fall Apple Vignette.
• I even used one in my The Early Fall Home Decor Dilemma (back-to-school) vignette last week.
• And no need to stop at the apples, I showed you how I used the spring blossoms in my decor in my Jadeite Green And Crabapples post.

Seriously. Apples are the inexpensive fall decor idea of the century!

Now enough about me, run over and visit the other Farmhouse Friday ladies and see what they are doing with their apples.

I hear it's some ap-peel-ing stuff! (Didn't think you could get out of here without a bad pun, did you?)

BUCKETS OF BURLAPSTONEGABLEFADED CHARMTOWN AND COUNTRY LIVING