Happy fall, everybody! This time of year brings a welcome change of sweater weather, crunchy leaves, and fall festivities. The pumpkins have all been carved, which means it’s time to start thinking of one of the biggest holiday celebrations of the year: Thanksgiving.

We all know Thanksgiving for being a food fest filled with family, but it’s also a fun occasion to decorate and fill your home with rhinestones.

Fall Colors

Be sure to look at our color chart, but we love oranges, reds, yellows, and browns for fall. For browns, Mocca, Jet Nut, Dorado, Helio, and Smoke Topaz all bring sparkle to an unsurprising color. We have some great selections in reds and oranges, including Siam, Copper, and Fireopal, and for yellows, you can choose from Sun, Sunflower, and Topaz.

Dress the Table

The Thanksgiving table isn’t complete without getting a little dressed up. Using rhinestones, you can add a unique creative touch to your dinner table.

Table Linens

It’s likely that your dining room table doesn’t see much use during the year, but Thanksgiving is a special occasion, and you should have a tablecloth to match. Choose the tablecloth of your color choice (we really like chocolates and whites). Embellishment is up to you, but you can create a simple pattern of stones along the edge. Try alternating colors and shapes to create a dynamic look. Make flowers by placing teardrop, navette, or marquis rhinestones in a circular pattern around a round stone.

Alternatively, you can create a one-of-a-kind table runner that will provide the perfect finishing touch on your table. Add rhinestones to the ends of the table runner. You can find templates for what are known as vector patterns that can help you lay out your perfect patterns of swirls and sparkle.

Napkin Holders

A properly dressed table often features napkins in some type of napkin ring or holder. This provides a great surface to put on your own glittering spin, which is sure to draw the eye to the beautiful table you’ve set.

You’ll need napkin rings with a base color or finish that you like. You may need to use smaller rhinestones if you choose a holder with more curves. Gather your materials, including flat-backed rhinestones, E-6000 glue, and a hotfix applicator. Determine your colors and patterns, though simple rows of rhinestones may be just enough if you’re looking for a subtler accessory.

Another approach we like is to create flowers in settings, glued together with E-6000 glue and fixed to a brass napkin ring. Alternatively, the Rhinestone Shop sells novelty shapes, such as flowers, that add a unique flavor to your rhinestone décor.

Centerpieces

The centerpiece is the focus of the Thanksgiving dinner table (besides the turkey!). Rhinestones can be used to embellish a centerpiece that will impress your family. For a cornucopia, line the mouth of the basket with rhinestones, and arrange silk fall leaves around the centerpiece; strategically adorn the leaves with rhinestones for a subtle, but impressive, fall look.

If you want your centerpiece to include candles, adding rhinestones will help reflect the flickers of light from the candles. Add rhinestones to candle holders to create a luminescent effect year round.

Turkey Time

What’s Thanksgiving without turkeys? Cute turkey figures are a great way to decorate your house for the season, and what better way to improve on them than with rhinestones?

Turkey figures are available at your local craft store, and may be wooden, ceramic, plastic, or resin. Most of these materials are not suitable for hotfix application, so you may need to use another surface glue, like hot glue. Depending on what type of turkey you find, you may want to embellish all of the plumage, or just use rhinestones sparingly as accents. Either way, we love the outcome, and you’ll end up with great accessories for years to come.

T-Shirt Embellishments

As always, rhinestones are great for t-shirts. There are dozens of heat transfers available on the Internet, and we love some of the classic designs out there, like:

• Turkeys
• “Happy Thanksgiving”
• Fall leaves
• Pie!

For rhinestone turkeys, use a brown color for the body, and alternate red, yellow, and orange for the plumage. T-shirt transfers stand out on a classic black shirt, but they also look great against oranges, reds, yellows, and white. The result is a colorful, sparkly, and festive shirt that’s perfect for this cool weather season.

Fall Wreaths

What better way to add some spice to a room but to add a festive wreath to a door, window, or wall? There are dozens of wreath ideas out there, but we especially love the idea of a wreath filled with a rainbow of autumn leaves thoughtfully adorned with rhinestones.

The first thing you’ll need is a wreath base. Wreath bases can be as simple as a brass hoop, and as rustic as a grapevine cluster. Wire hoops are easy to find at craft stores. There are even Styrofoam hoops, but those lack the aesthetic finish of something more solid.

The next thing you’ll need is the filler for your wreath. For an autumn wreath, this can mean pinecones, corn, apples, twigs, and brightly colored fall leaves. All of these are accessible at your local craft store. Make a statement by choosing one material to dominate the wreath, or create a blend of some or all of the wreath materials to create a look all your own.

Attach wreath pieces with hot glue and florist wire and cover either the whole wreath base or a portion of it—sometimes leaving part of the base exposed creates an interesting visual effect. You’ll want to add ribbon, specifically wire ribbon that can hold its shape. Once you’ve attached your ribbon, you can decide where you want to place rhinestones. Choose reds, oranges, and yellows, and even chocolates, all of which will enhance the fall flavors of your wreath.

We’re always getting new inventory at the Rhinestone Shop—check in regularly to what has come in, and be sure to take time to enjoy the fall weather and the bounty of Thanksgiving!