Centerpiece of Attention

Rummage around your home and you’ll find the necessary ingredients for stunning Thanksgiving centerpieces everywhere you look. With a little creativity, you can transform golden leaves and vines from your yard, fall fruits and vegetables, and baskets or crockery into a sparkling arrangement.

Whether you maintain the natural look, or gild your creation depends on your taste preference, your time and your budget. You’ll find proponents for both styles to inspire you.

Jonathan Fong enjoys discovering fun elements to assemble.

“I think the Thanksgiving season is a great time to use some inexpensive or free arrangements,” says Santa Monica, Calif.-based Fong.

“I love the idea of bringing free items from the backyard into your arrangement,” says Fong, author of “Parties that Wow: Setting the Stage for Creative Entertaining” (Watson-Guptill, 2007).

Diane Morgan starts with inexpensive elements, such as farmer’s market gourds or heads of broccoli and apples, and transforms them into glittering centerpieces.

“The green of the acorn squash looks fabulous with antique brass spray on part of it,” says Morgan, author of “The Christmas Table” and “The Thanksgiving Table” (Chronicle Books, 2008 and 2006). Apples “look cool with gold,” says the Portland, Ore.-based cookbook author.

Here are Fong’s simple tips and Morgan’s sizzling suggestions for more elaborate constructions:

• Find a maple tree branch that’s retained its leaves. Put it in a vase, old teakettle or even a boot lined with plastic. “Use restraint. Just a branch can look great, but if you have several branches and leaves it gets messy,” says Fong.
• Spread sprigs of garden ivy around the table - no need for a vase, Fong says.
• Stock up on fresh basil, parsley and cilantro from the farmers market. Bunch the herbs into little bouquets and place in small vases around the table.
• Buy fresh artichokes. Insert metal skewers in the stem ends. Then place the artichokes in a vase, as you would flowers. “In this economy it sends a nice message that you’re not being wasteful,” Fong says.
• Line a basket so it’s waterproof. Attach small ears of Indian corn to the basket using florist tape. Insert a few flowers from your garden or from a florist into the basket. Fill the open spaces with bunches of Champagne grapes.
• Purchase a plain grapevine cornucopia from a craft store. Weave artificial berries into the cornucopia and fill it with little pumpkins and wax gourds. Use a couple of broccoli heads as the foundation for a bouquet. Incorporate Indian corn and baby pumpkins. “Add grasses to give you some fluff to make it more floral than a bunch of vegetables,” Morgan says.
• Buy a few cans of spray paint in autumn colors such as gold and bronze. Spray squash and firm fruit, such as apples and pears. Don’t overdo it. A partially sprayed squash that still shows the original color is more striking than a completely coated squash, according to Morgan.

But don’t toss the painted vegetables after Turkey Day. “These last a long time. You can use them on the mantle with greens after Thanksgiving,” says Morgan.