How to Create a Thanksgiving Fruit and Nut Centerpiece

Fruit is not only good for your body, but is also a great décor element that can transition from kitchen to table in no time flat! You can prepare a bowl of fruit and nuts for the fall season by adding fall leaves--but here is the twist--paper leaves are quite chic, and a fun how-to for kids!

Choose one type of fruit per bowl and one type of shelled nut. Not only will this simple centerpiece take no time to create--but it's edible and tasty too!

Purchase fruit that reminds you of fall or colors that tie into your table linens.

Make a leaf cutout. You can either draw your leaf free hand or print out fall leaf templates online. I found a great website where you can download templates that would be perfect for this project (kids.creativity-portal.com). You will be using this to trace the other leaves. Rather than using real leaves from your garden, cutting leaves out of rice paper or stock paper makes the centerpiece more unique and interesting. Choose paper that matches both your fruit and table linens.

Arrange your fruit, nuts and leaves in separate wooden bowls of various sizes. Ceramic bowls will work just fine too. Scatter the leaves randomly between the bowls and down the center of the table. Make sure you don’t go too crazy with the leaves because you still want to be able to see the fruit! I've also used curly twigs found at the craft store to mimic the stems!

Continue this project all through winter by changing up your choice of fruits and paper cutouts. For example, you can try mini white-glittered snowflake cutouts with peaches or spray-painted gold apples in a crystal footed bowl--stunning for New Year's Eve