It's always a challenge for me to come up with attractive and yet affordable centerpieces–but here's an idea for this holiday season. I recently attended an architectural awards banquet where the holiday centerpieces were simply but artfully arranged. I loved the kind of organic feel of them due to the use of a large pinecone as the focal point. A couple large brown leaves at the base, a bit of ivy, a few red berries and some pliable branches (does anyone know what these are?) were added to increase the size of the arrangement–still keeping it very inexpensive to make.  

Here is one of these centerpieces on my kitchen table. Notice the snow through my widows!