5 Minute Fall Centerpiece

This year, I came up with a really easy fall centerpiece for my table that literally took me five minutes to make and I didn't spend a penny!  I know, even better right?!

So here is how I made this:

1.  I took my three crates that I purchased from AC Moore and hooked them together using floral wire.  

***side note-these come unfinished so you can paint them any color you would like...of course I spray painted mine!!

2.  I used Christmas garland (You can used Christmas garland in the fall too!!! It can give any centerpiece a rustic feel) and spread it across the three crates.  I pretty much just plopped it inside because as you add things you can change the shape.  

3.  I added some fall garland, weaving it from one side to the other.

4.  I added pinecones alternating sides as well and stuffed some of them down the sides so that you could see it at different openings.

5.  Weave burlap ribbon throughout to fill in all of the holes.  I didn't leave my burlap ribbon in one piece, though.  I cut shorter pieces so that I could put it wherever it was needed and scrunched the burlap to add fullness. 

6.  Lastly, I had a couple of pumpkins that I threw on the top.  

So there you have it.  A five minute centerpiece.  Easy Peasy as my 8 year old says!

Believe the Best

Recently, God has really been teaching me about my need to believe the best in people or to give people the benefit of the doubt.  

1 Corinthians 13:7 addresses this issue:  "She (love) bears up everything, believes the best in all; there is no limit to her hope, and never will she fail." International Standard Version.  

So, over the next couple of weeks I hope to blog about several people and situations in our lives where we often need to offer more grace and believe the best in others.  I hope that this challenges you as much as it does myself:

Your Spouse
Now this can be a tough one, right? If your marriage is like mine, 90% of our "heated discussions" are because one of us has not believed the best in the other. 

This is typically how it works for a woman: your husband asks you, "what have you done today?" and we loose it because we automatically think he is criticizing or demeaning the amount of work we were able to accomplish in that day.  When in actuality he hadn't thought that much into the question and really meant, "what have you done today?"  We need to believe the best in our husband rather than assume there is more to the question.

How about for the man?  Let's say the husband comes home from work and the wife is overwhelmed because of homework, running the kids to sports, dinner, stress at work, etc. The wife is short with the husband because of her stress.  Should the husband believe the best in his wife and offer grace to her response. Absolutely.

These are just two very simple examples but this week try and think about ways that you can believe the best in your spouse. 

EXTEND GRACE. BELIEVE THE BEST. GIVE THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.

I love this quote by Stephen Kendrick in the book, The Love Dare;   “Love chooses to believe the best about people. It gives them the benefit of the doubt. It refuses to fill in the unknowns with negative assumptions. And when our worst hopes are proven to be true, love makes every effort to deal with them and move forward. As much as possible, love focuses on the positive.”