Decorating with Dead Things!

I mentioned to my son that I was going to decorate the sideboard in November with natural things like sticks and grass and the monkey fist nautical knots I won in a giveaway from Suzanne at Meridian Road.  My 16 year old son replied "Oh so you're going to decorate with dead things".  Hmmm - I guess you could summarize it that way.  

So here it is, finally, our sideboard decorated with dead things!

I've wanted to do an African theme on our sideboard for ages and have just never got around to it, so I combined the natural elements with some of our treasures from Africa.

Let me give you a tour from right to left - 

The baskets and little elephant are from Botswana and were brought back by our eldest son Malcolm and my parents when they each visited my brother and family who lived there for several years.

I loved using the vintage mason jar in my fall sideboard arrangement and had to find a way to incorporate it into the November display, so I put some dried up, thoroughly dead, two year old high bush cranberry berries in it.  Who wouldn't want desiccated berries on their sideboard?  I guess these are the dead things!

I put the white pumpkins out in the long wooden bowl that Kate gave me last Christmas.  I love that dish - it is so useful and so pretty.

The giraffe was brought back from Zambia by my Grandmother when she taught there in the 1970s and the little ceramic jug is from Nigeria from when I lived there as a child.

And finally I stacked the monkey fist nautical knots at the lefthand end of the sideboard to add some visual weight.  Aren't they gorgeous? 

There you go - a sideboard decorated with dead things!


Linked to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch
Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home