Restyle a Vase or Two for Fall

Vases are wonderful tools for designing the perfect table. They are available in any shape, size and color, and can provide sculptural beauty, with or without flowers.

When fall is in full force and the holidays on the horizon, it’s time to design a timely tabletop scene. Use one or many vases as the main attraction, and rotate them as needed to keep up with your mood and the weather. Interior designers Kelley Motschenbacher and Paige Loczi offer plenty of ideas to get us started.

Paige Loczi suggests starting with what makes you happy. Then think about:

Color. Maybe it’s a color that you joyfully link with the season. Oranges, reds, yellows, browns, creams and purples are most often associated with fall, while during the winter holidays we generally lean toward greens, reds, blues, gold, silver and paper white.

Combine your favorite colored vases for a display that can stand on its own or that inspires an equally vivid flower arrangement.


Shape. Maybe you'd prefer to start with a shape that mirrors or contrasts other objects in the room. In this kitchen the rounded vases are in keeping with the shape of the chairs and cushions.


Motschenbacher added a shapely vase here to offset the table's symmetry.


Size. If you're decorating a long dining or entry table under a high ceiling, consider using tall cylindrical vases to emphasize the space’s generous dimensions. If you’ll be using these vases for a dinner party, slim-profile ones will let guests enjoy the beauty of the arrangement while still allowing them to communicate freely with others under the foliage.


For a fall soiree or festive holiday dinner party set around a smaller table, use multiple short vases that folks can comfortably see over. Few things kill a good dinner conversation more quickly than not being able to see who you’re talking to.


Repetition. Regardless of the colors or shapes of vases you’ve chosen, “repeat those colors and shapes in odd-numbered groups or in long, linear rows," Motschenbacher suggests.


This can mean using the same vases for a continuous look, such as these milk glass vases filled with paperwhite bulbs for a distinctively wintry effect.


Old soda or milk bottles can make a nice set. Motschenbacher shows off this arrangement, in which the original carrier basket contains the display.


Or repeat a pattern, as with these candles and flowers, which create a soothing bath-time ambience on cold nights.


Mix vases with other accessories with something in common, be it color, shape or size. For a cohesive theme, continue the color, shape or size theme you’ve chosen for the table in other parts of the room.


Style. When we think of vases, our first thought might be of glass and ceramic. Motschenbacher likes to show off her fall roses in vintage ceramic pitchers.


While antiques are in style all year, there’s something particularly autumnal about them. Perhaps it's a reminder of wonderful old farms that produce the best pumpkins and apples this time of year.

Bring that feeling closer by placing a floral arrangement inside an antique vessel next to your reading chair or bed.


Other materials and containers. Push the definition of "vase" by coming up with creative containers for fall displays.


For a Thanksgiving affair, Loczi suggests using a pumpkin as a flower vase for an unexpected touch. Choose a pumpkin larger than the glass vessel you’ll need inside to hold the water.

Carve out the pumpkin as you would to start a jack-o’-lantern, cutting the top slightly wider than the vase insert. A large pumpkin will need tall flowers to balance out the proportions.


Motschenbacher is a fan of using baskets as vases. Here she added flowers (inside a glass insert) to a vintage egg basket. This country-style arrangement sets an inviting outdoor scene for an apple-tasting or pumpkin-carving party.


Another one of Motschenbacher’s basket arrangements involves no flowers, but rather a display of miniature pumpkins and gourds. Wire baskets and urns contain the bounty without hiding any of its beauty.


Feathers and sunflowers were garnished with gold pipe cleaners and placed inside vintage vases here. "The gold vessels were air-freshener canisters from the 1960s that I got at a garage sale for a dollar each," Loczi notes.


Here Loczi shows off her display of mason jars, which she wrapped in linen and twine. "You could just as easily wrap family photos around a jar instead for a completely different effect," she says.

Show us: What vase displays do you have on your tabletop for the season?

More: How to make a fall gift bouquet

URL: Restyle a Vase or Two for Fall http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-21763.html