January | 2014 | Tablescapes at Table /Twenty-One

A portion of this post was featured along with an interview on trends in entertaining at home in the January 2015 issue of “Kansas City At Home” magazine!

INSPIRATION: My “no boys allowed!” dressing room

The decor in our house is pretty unisex…except for my dressing room! This is the one place that has a definite feminine touch with all the girly-girl trappings one might expect: chandelier, lavish antique dressing table, fainting couch near a window (yes, ladies…we all have our drama queen moments!), a tricked out nail station, bulging jewelry closet, stereo system, television (hoping for a flat screen to replace the outdated one in there now…anybody want to help me “accidentally” drop & break it? 😉 ), flowers, vintage hat boxes, innumerable handbags, and SHOES. Lots and lots and lots of shoes!!! And did I mention HATS? My cup runneth over with chapeaus of all make and occasion. It’s the place to feel all Marilyn Monroe and vogue to my heart’s content!
(Click on any photo and then again to enhance/enlarge it for fine details!)

I started this Marilyn-Monroe-in-“The-Seven-Year-Itch”-meets-Madonna’s-“Blonde-Ambition-World-Tour” tablescape with a sleek, sexy black full-length tablecloth from LinenTablecloth.com. It’s like the little black dress of the room! Consider the fine jewelry store. The salesperson lays out your selections on a black velvet fabric. Why? To enhance the shine of the jewels! Everything on your table, therefore, is highlighted to the nth power when set atop a black linen.

What does every Material Girl have plenty of everywhere? Why, mirrors, of course! So I started this place setting with a 13″ round mirrored charger topped with sleek black plates. TIP: This charger is a slick little way to discreetly check your lipstick or make sure there’s no spinach stuck in your teeth during dinner! 😉

Imagination is key when setting a fun fantasy tablescape for any occasion. (This one would work well for a birthday, wedding shower, bridesmaids luncheon or girls night out dinner.) For this über-feminine, straight-from-the-dressing room tablescape, an ivory LinenTablecloth.com “clutch bag” napkin fold is set atop each plate with an oversized “diamond” clasp. The flatware is International Silver’s “Royal Danish” pattern. The stemware is Cristal d’Arques.

I found these fun Marilyn Monroe note cards at Michaels Craft Store and thought they’d make really fun place cards. Just imprint the name of your guest along the bottom of the card perpendicular to Marilyn’s! The acrylic “diamond” place card holders are from Hobby Lobby.

A true Material Girl is bound to flaunt lots of bling, so I used the same rhinestone ribbon runners used HERE to trail the length of both sides of the table. Matching votive holders are used all over the setting. TIP: You can buy the votive holders already blinged out, or simply make them yourself with remnant pieces of bling ribbon.

I took a few hat boxes from my dressing room to create the centerpiece. If using fresh flowers, line the hat box with plastic in case of accidental spills. Place the roses in small vases and arrange them to fill & slightly over-spill from the box. Here I put roses in the center box but kept the lids on the two flanking boxes. To dress them up a little more, I added ruby red magnetic bling often used for enhancing chandeliers and other light fixtures. TIP: You can buy the bling in the lamp department at Hobby Lobby. These particular hat boxes had metal corner guards, so they were easy to apply. TIP: If you want to do something like this but don’t have metal on your hat box, experiment with taping magnets in strategic places inside the box for the bling to adhere from the outside.

I always like to create a little coordinating vignette on the buffet behind our dining table if it isn’t being used for food display.

Rarely do I have a round cake with a large base (thanks to my step-daughter and nieces who are dragging their feet about getting married!), so my collection of silver cake plateaus is often called into service for other decorating. Here, I used a silver beaded-edge “hoop skirt” stand to add a little shine and raise more hat boxes in the center of the display.

When I was a little girl, I enjoyed looking at the elegant displays in jewelry stores. The hand displays were particularly intriguing to me. Here I used a pair of display hands to hold petite red rose bouquets, flash oversized “diamond rings” from a store called Stuff in the historic Brookside neighborhood in Kansas City, Mo., and to string long, dramatic strands of bling garland through the fingers across the length of the buffet.

On each end of the buffet is a tall, sleek, 36-24-36 hourglass figure black glass vase from Tuesday Morning. The vases are topped with red rose balls and swagged with more of the bling garland.

The chairs on each end of the table got a little special treatment: fun French-inspired pillows from my dressing room depicting those fabulous black gloves like every socialite of the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s used to wear. I added a pair of my own rhinestone-studded evening gloves for good measure.

Tea carts aren’t just for tea!!!

In a scene from “The Seven Year Itch”, Marilyn Monroe’s character is introduced to the martini:

Richard Sherman: There’s gin and vermouth. That’s a martini.

Marilyn Monroe’s character: Oh, that sounds cool! I think I’ll have a glass of that. A big tall one!
Quote Source: IMDB.com

I’m with Marilyn…I’ll have a big tall one, too! The vintage tea cart is set up with all the makings of a fabulous martini including vermouth, vodka, olives and plenty of shakers to quickly whip them up.

The china cabinet in the dining room often gets a little something-something to top it off, too.

One of the black velvet jewelry busts from my dressing room was brought in to this display weighted down with strand after strand of bling. Another hat box is filled with red roses and carnations and adorned with a pretty bling brooch from my Mom’s collection. A couple of other red rose balls complete the florals. This terrific black stiletto heel figurine was destined for my neighbor’s thrift store pile. She and her daughter thankfully thought of me before shipping it off, and it makes a nice addition! To give it a little extra kick, I tied a length of red ribbon ballerina-style down the heel. Sexy little number, huh? 😉

I wanted to kick 2014 off with a bang-up post since 2013 was such a royal bust. Since I felt like kickin’, I figured doing it with attitude in black stilettos was the way to go! 😉

Other posts on this site with lots of bling:
“Should Have Put a Ring On It”
“Princess Pink Birthday Dinner”
“Fairy Tale Wedding Shower – The Princess & the Frog”
“Bling Wedding”
“Mandarin Bling”
“Platinum & Pink Valentine”
“French Poodle”
“Rhapsody in Blue”