One of the best things about autumn is the color palette. The rich earth tones and warm golds and oranges add a touch of warmth to the chill in the air.

For this week’s Craft Corner, we decided to put together a couple of Halloween floral arrangements. One has a definitely sunny point of view; the other is a bit darker, but still colorful.

To make our bright display, you’ll need a ceramic pumpkin planter (or something comparable) and an assortment of faux flowers in fall hues.

We found our planter at Craft Mart in Marysville, but we’ve seen dozens of wonderful containers in other local craft stores, pharmacy gift shops and nurseries.

To keep the flowers in place, we placed a block of florist’s Styrofoam inside the planter, and we also added a piece of decorative paper just behind the cutouts in the face to hide the foam and the stems.

It may look as though the arrangement took lots of flowers, but we actually used only four components.

We started with a cluster of leaves, acorns and nuts – sold together in one “bush” – and used it as the floral base, anchored in the florist’s foam.

Next, we added a half-dozen bright yellow flowers to add the sunshine, placed as desired among the leaves.

For a bit of fun and interest, we added some dark feather stems (several feathers combined on a floral stem) and a little Halloween decoration with a sparkly bat and “Happy Halloween” in orange tinsel.

This arrangement is for a centerpiece, so we paid attention to all sides of the planter, making sure it looks good from any angle.

When Halloween is over, just pull out the bat-and-tinsel decoration and keep the arrangement around for a few more weeks.

Now let’s step over to the dark side and our bouquet in black, perfect for a ghoulish buffet table or window display.

We fell in love with the bunch of black roses we found, but we didn’t want our second display to be too grim, so we added a couple of purple-black flowers and another bat-and-tinsel decoration for some color.

Then, while browsing through the Halloween section at JoAnn Fabrics, we found some fabric adorned with metallic flames in fabulous rainbow colors, which we thought would make a great vase cover.

Don’t worry about cutting the material to size; just buy a yard or so and tuck it into the vase. That way, the fabric will help to hold the flowers in place, and when you’re done with the display, you can take it apart and use the fabric for something else.

In one of our stashes, we found an old clear glass vase. We covered it with the fabric and tied a couple lengths of black satin cord around the neck to hold the fabric in place and add a finishing touch.

We didn’t use any florist’s foam for this arrangement, as the fabric gave us all the stability we needed.

Since we planned to have this display against a wall, we arranged the flowers so the back of the arrangement was flatter than the front and sides, using the purple-black flowers and a black chrysanthemum as the center of the display and rounding it out with the roses.

To finish, we added a feather stem and the Halloween decoration, happily noticing that the orange tinsel was a perfect match to the orange flames in the fabric.

Unlike our sunshine arrangement, you probably won’t keep the dark display around much past Oct. 31, but you can save the flowers for next year’s Halloween projects.

And don’t forget …

We’ll be happy to mention your holiday-themed class or workshop in an upcoming Craft Corner column.

If you’re planning something a little out of the ordinary, we’d love to hear about it, but traditional is OK as well. We’ll try to include as many suggestions as possible in the coming weeks.

Send information, including your name and phone or e-mail contact, the name of the class and the instructor or shop, and a contact number for them, to: Jonetta Coffin, c/o The Herald, Features, P.O. Box 930, Everett, WA 98206; e-mail jrocoffin@aol.com; or call 425-238-4985 and leave a message and phone number for a return call.