Labor Day weekend. What can I say? Time for a Coke and a smile with friends and family!
I’m actually OK with seeing the end of summer roll around. This summer of 2021 was…interesting.
I have several patriotic tablescapes on this site that I’d be tickled for you to use as inspiration.
Looking for a just good old-fashioned picnic? Click on a link below for ideas!
Have a joyful end of summer!!!!!!!! See you in the fall, y’all!
My expertise doesn’t run particularly strong when it comes to tablescapes for children, but I still take the plunge every so often. This time around I’ve tried my hand at a little girls’ party fit for a fairy princess.
The Dollar Tree often sells really terrific stuff for entertaining. I’m always so glad to hap upon items like these fairy wings and cute Disney princess products that sparked an idea for a kids’ tablescape with very feminine features.
Every little girl should have the benefit of a special party created in her honor. To do so doesn’t require a ton of money, but little touches can make it extra special. I started the tablescape for 4 with a luxurious pink pinched pinwheel taffeta tablecloth from LinenTablecloth.com. (These tablecloths are machine washable and easy care, so you can rest easy while little girls enjoy.) Bling runners are crisscrossed on the table for an extra lavish touch.
I used disposable tableware including a clear plastic plate (the better to see the princess placemat with, my dear!), a trio of lavender, white & pink paper napkins (messy hands need lots of napkins!), and plastic cutlery in pink, lavender and yellow. Pink striped princess party hats for each guest and a “gemstone” candy ring top off each place setting. Reusable Dollar Tree Disney fairy-themed cups with bright yellow straws serve as a part of the take-home favors.
Dessert is part of the off-center centerpiece! A trio of clear glass cake stands are stacked and topped with a princess dress form clad in pink, white & yellow tulle (to which I hot glued white fairy wings) that creates a fun and pretty way to display cupcakes.
Dollar Tree is the place for kid-friendly favors, too! Disney princess coloring books and crayons become a part of the centerpiece that can be easily accessed for coloring together at the party. Each guest can then take her book & crayons home to continue the fun.
I found these cute polka-dotted pink & green butterfly canvases in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby some years ago. This seemed like the perfect tablescape to finally use them.
I’m on a roll with these paper lanterns this year! A fun mix of royal purple, princess pink, diamond white, lime green, and juicy orange lanterns that complement the colors on the cups and placemats sway overhead. To amp up the deluxe factor, I added garlands of crystal bling. (Are we still using that word? It’s all I’ve got, man!)
Fairy Princess Party…OUT!!!
Other clumsy attempts at parties suitable for children on this site:
Life is Just a Chair of Bowlies
Popsicle Party
Cupcake Colors
Pink & Purple Chocolate Christmas
Confectionery Christmas
Sugar High
Kaleidoscope Christmas
Frosty the Snowman
Other princess-inspired posts on this site:
Princess Pink Birthday Dinner
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Fairy Tale Wedding Shower – The Princess & the Frog
Join me starting at 6:00 CDT tonight for
Cuisine Kathleen‘s Birds/Eggs/Nests Tablescape Challenge!!!
INSPIRATION: Flowers left over from my Mom’s 85th birthday luncheon (Click on photo to go to this post.)
I had a ton of flowers left over from the ladies’ luncheon I hosted for my Mom’s birthday a couple of weeks ago, so I put together a quickie tablescape to demonstrate how some of these same flowers could be used in a less formal but nonetheless pretty luncheon or brunch setting for Spring or Summer. This setting would also be ideal for a baby shower (especially if the gender is unknown!), special adult birthday, bridal shower or luncheon, engagement party, Mother’s Day gathering, rehearsal dinner, or even a garden club get-together.
(Click on any photo, then click again to enhance/enlarge it.)
As with the luncheon, full-length 90″ x 132″ white tablecloths from LinenTablecloth.com were used. The table this time, however, is configured to seat 8 instead of 12, with the two 6-ft. tables kissed together lengthwise to create an “almost square.” (Consider this table arrangement in rooms where multiple tables will be set up, too. A mix of rounds, “squares” and oblongs is very pleasing to the eye, helps settle the problem of too few or too many place settings at a table, and can offer varied centerpiece opportunities!)
The place settings here are quite pared down compared to my Mom’s luncheon! A square rattan charger from Tuesday Morning anchors the setting. A very feminine and pretty white scrolled plate from Home Goods is set out for lunch.
A cotton napkin in spring green and white from Stein Mart is simply tented and placed atop each plate. The flatware – also used in last week’s “All A’Bloom in Pink for Spring” tablescape – is Hampton Forge’s “Bamboo Mirror” stainless steel pattern. The glassware is from Dollar Tree.
All of the flowers needed to be re-cut anyway to keep them fresh longer, so that was the perfect opportunity to rearrange them into different vessels. Lined moss-covered flower pots make beautiful small arrangements to complement the centralized large whitewashed metal pitcher. Whitewashed metal planters flank each end of the table-length centerpiece, with all of it anchored by a sheet of moss. (Flowers and greenery: white spider mums, peachy pink roses, peachy pink spray roses, fragrant stock, greenish white carnations, seeded eucalyptus, goldenrod, leatherleaf and variegated pittosporum)
Decorative white birds from Michael’s and bird salt & pepper shakers from Pier 1 dot the centerpiece. Small birds from Michael’s also rest at the tip of the forks.
Finally, the same white stretch chair covers from LinenTablecloth.com are used, this time without the white rosette chair cap or satin sash. Reducing the layers of fabric on the chairs serves to further reduce the complexity of the overall tablescape.
So, there you have it. From over-the-top fab one week to sweet, lovely and a whole lot easier to accomplish while maintaining quality results the next!
Other posts on this site featuring Spring tablescapes:
“Spring Has Sprung”
“The Bluebird Special”
“Daffodilyicious”
“Purple for Spring”
“Zen Garden”
“Mum’s the Word”
“Rolling Fields of Green”
“Taste of Wine Buffet”
“Goin’ Green for Spring”
“Springtime in Paris Mother’s Day Buffet”
“Peony Power”
“Moss & Manzanitas”
“Daisy Crazy”
“French Poodle”
“All A’Bloom in Pink for Spring”
“Celebrating 85 Years of Fabulous”
and the “Spring” tab above for a couple of fun Springtime tablescapes
In addition to Cuisine Kathleen‘s Spring Challenge (challenging us to present tables using birds, eggs and/or nests), I’ll be joining Susan again this week for “Tablescape Thursday”. I hope you’ll come visit these fine parties for a lot of inspiration and a whole lot of tablescaping fun!
If it seems like I’m dumping an awful lot of Christmas tablescapes on you all at once, it’s because I am!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 I had 6 tables from the “Art of Tablescaping” class I taught back in October, PLUS 3 additional ones I had to get out of my brain. I hope I’m able to share them all before Christmas Eve for those still scouting ideas!
(Click on any photo to enhance/enlarge it to see up-close details.)
INSPIRATION: These fun bandanas with a flourish of coffee labels to use as napkins found at Hobby Lobby over the summer.
I saw these bandanas at Hobby Lobby and immediately thought, “Christmas!”
Our eat-in kitchen is the place to be on Christmas morning as the sun begins its lazy ascent. I like to have lots of good food waiting, and along with that food is lots of coffee to get us through the long day. We’re grandparents now…just don’t have the energy we used to! 🙂 (Click HERE to see another Christmas morning breakfast tablescape!)
I draped our 45″ x 45″ counter-height table with a 108″ round Christmas-y red tablecloth and then topped it with an 85″ x 85″ espresso brown tablecloth, both from LinenTablecloth.com. While brown may not be a top 3 color choice that springs to mind when you think of Christmas, it looks great when paired with the bright red.
Bright red Royal Norfolk plates and coffee mugs from Deal$ (same folks who own Dollar Tree) pair with ivory cereal bowls. The napkin, positioned between the plate and bowl, picks up the colors from both the tablecloths and dishes.
Rays of morning sun stream in across the Hampton Silversmith “Patriot” flatware.
A simple centerpiece is all that’s needed for Christmas morning. This one consists of a deep brown basket from Dollar Tree filled with fresh, aromatic coffee beans topped with a handful of cranberries, a few glitzy ornaments and a sprig or two of greenery.
A cute reindeer made of grapevine stands ready to serve by this year’s kitchen Christmas tree. No fancy adornment here…just a few strands of lights to make it stand out in the corner. The stool that lends height to the tree is covered with a cheerful snowflake Christmas tree skirt from the Dollar Tree. For just a dollar, no worries if something is spilled on it!
A largely unadorned wreath in the window is accompanied this morning by a couple of prints that depict the wondrous glory of coffee. Amen to that!
A lush red poinsettia given to us by our neighbor is displayed in a dark urn on the breakfast bar. The espresso sign leaves no doubt what this morning is all about: the coffee!
This tiered table was moved from the living room to free up floor space for the Christmas tree, so it had to get a little something-something in the way of decoration, too. The top is adorned with a large greenery spray dotted with red berries. A big bowl of cranberries picks up some of the elements in the table centerpiece. On the shelf below is a soup tureen with a holly and rosemary motif from Home Goods. Placing it atop a few books gives it little more prominence.
I hope you’re just about finished with your shopping and decorating so that you can relax and soak up the joys of the season this weekend. Thanks so much for stopping by!
A few other Christmas tablescapes on this site include:
“Celebrate the Season”
“Christmas in the Woods”
“Kaleidoscope Christmas”
“Merry & Bright – Multi-Color Christmas”
“Christmas Through the Red Door”
“Life Is A Cabaret – New Year’s Eve”
“Waking Up to Christmas – Bedroom Decor”
“Black, White & Red All Over Christmas”
“Christmas 2012 – Red, Black & Silver”
“Checkered Christmas”
“Pink & Purple Chocolate Christmas”
“Sugar High Payback”
“Contemporary Christmas”
“Gentlemen’s Winter Retreat”
“Woodland Men’s Tablescape”
“Cranberry Christmas”
“Cranberry Christmas Squared”
“Get Me To the Church On Time”
“Christmas Progressive Dinner”
“White Hot”
“Winter Brunch”
“Really Red Christmas”
“Roman Holiday”
“Cardinal Christmas”
“Frosty the Snowman”
“March of the Penguins”
“Winter Cardinal”
“Ideas for Throwing a Winter Dessert Party”
“Christmas Fiesta”
“Over the River and Through the Woods”
“Black Friday Luncheon”
“Noel Progressive Dinner”
“Old-Fashioned Red & Green Christmas”
“Timberland Christmas”
“Christmas Coffee”
“Warm Metal Christmas”
“Let It Snow”
“Tuscan Holiday“
Each Christmas season Ramon and I team up with our cul-de-sac buddies for a much-anticipated Progressive Dinner. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s when several households progress from one home to the next for several dinner courses. This year the Alsups did the fabulous cocktails and hors d’ouevres which included bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, homemade cheese straws, crab-stuffed mushroom caps, and a very sneaky cranberry/vodka/sparkling wine drink. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
It was one of those drinks that will creep up and whack you over the head if you’re not careful! Delicious!!! Next, to the Jenisons for a tasty but healthy salad with heavenly home-baked wheat bread.
Salad course at the Jenisons’. Ramon is taking the picture.
We then moved on to our home for the entrée before hopping across the street to the Rutherfords’ for a variety of sinful desserts, coffee and after-dinner drinks. I went to the doctor the day after for a routine check-up. I had gained 2 pounds from the previous week, and my blood pressure was up. Uh….duh!!!
I wanted to do a really dramatic, special, over-the-top tablescape to thank my neighbors for their kindness, generosity and goodness of heart throughout the year. Two 6-ft. tables placed together horizontally are covered with full-length white linens in our family room.
I love the double charger treatment, so a sparkly red 13″ charger (Target 2008) is topped with a goldtone 12″ (Hobby Lobby). The dishes are Pfaltzgraff’s wonderfully traditional “Winterberry” which is one of my favorite Christmas designs.
I like to use our initialed linen dinner napkins whenever possible. For this night I dressed them up with a red berry napkin ring. I just used a standard berry stem from Hobby Lobby that I twisted to encircle the easy, classic napkin fold. LOTS of color and dimension, and it adds a little more height to the place setting!!!
I am SO happy to have finally jumped on the Dollar Tree train! This soft green stemware that I picked up there is coming in handy for so many table settings! (Click here to see it used in a very contemporary table setting.)
I bought these rockin’ gold metal reindeer wholesale many years ago when I owned my fine rentals business. They measure 36″H without the antlers, so they’re perfect for the “go big or go home” look I love so much. I covered the center of the table with a couple of clear plastic trash bags to keep the linens underneath clean. I dressed each for the evening with a collar of berries with a red velvet bow. (To see last year’s cul-de-sac progressive dinner – dressed up with different reindeer decor – click HERE and scroll down to “Noel Progressive Dinner“.
I painstakingly placed each branch of this flocked pine cone greenery to create a sort of wreath to cover the reindeer stands. Red berry picks and shiny red Christmas ornaments finish off the fun yet sophisticated reindeer centerpiece.
We were dining in the family room, so I dressed the top of the television armoire to complement the table with this small reindeer and lots of lighted greenery punctuated with red berries, ribbon, and ornaments.
The grapevine wreath in the window is covered with a profusion of red berries and finished off with a few flocked faux branches, pinecones, oversized Christmas balls and red velvet ribbon. I kept the mantel simple with two smaller grapevine & berry wreaths.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the menu…Cornish hens basted in a garlic butter sauce, wild rice and green beans. Our neighbors, Carla and Jim, were unable to attend this year’s dinner but sent over homemade cinnamon sugar-dusted Parker rolls.
So another year, another wonderful Progressive Dinner with fine friends who we love and cherish. God is good! From our homes to yours, have a very Merry Christmas!!!
Please join me again this week for Tablescape Thursday over at Susan’s Between Naps on the Porch!
I’m still on the mend from this horrible upper respiratory thing that has plagued me the last two weeks, but I’m not going to let a little thing like not breathing keep me from posting!!! 🙂
I had this post on hold from a table I did some time ago. This one is not a Thanksgiving-oriented set-up, but it will be a good one to keep in mind for those days in January and February when you want to create a peaceful winter tablescape for entertaining after the hectic holiday season.
I started with a sleek black full-length table linen.
I bought these fabulous dark green Home Essentials & Beyond “Montclair Collection” dinner plates at Marshalls awhile back. I so love the intricate raised design! My hesitation in using these lovely plates sooner has been in what to pair with them. The black linen inspired me to use a black charger, but I knew it would disappear. The addition of the cool square copper-colored chargers made all the difference!!! I wish I could tell you where to get the copper chargers, but I bought them wholesale and don’t know where they are sold retail. The black chargers are from Wal-Mart. I set the double chargers in an offset position to show off all three layers.
For this dinner we were eating Chinese takeout, so a pair of chopsticks were the only eating utensils necessary. I nestled them in the crevice of sleek black napkins pinched with copper-colored napkin rings (also purchased wholesale) and draped across the plate.
So I finally got hip to Dollar Tree. It’s about time, huh? My Mom called and said there was some beautiful dark green stemware there that I just MUST see, so off I went! Lo and behold, there was stemware that would work perfectly with the plates! Hooray!!! I scooped up a dozen each goblets and champagne flutes, and the cashier gave me the ugliest look I’ve ever seen when I got to the counter. She was NOT happy about having to wrap all of those, even though I brought along my own bubble wrap and box!
I bought these uber-cool dark green Vidrios San Miguel vases (made of recycled glass!) at TJ Maxx awhile back. LOVE THEM!!! They’re huge and they really make a statement on the table! To go with the sleek, zen feeling of the room I just plopped in a few branches of fresh curly willow for a cool and easy centerpiece.
I used a double row of votives between the two vases of curly willow to lend continuity to the look of the centerpiece and add ambient light.
I repeated the oblong votive treatment on the buffet behind the dining table for a sleek, easy look with lots of character!
Other Asian-inspired tablescapes on this site:
“Peaceful Peonies”
“Mandarin Bling”
“Year of the Rabbit”
“Mikasa ‘Daylight’ Giveaway“
Other tablescapes using curly willow on this site:
“Welcome Back, Joel”
“Autumn Blues”
“Blushing Bridal“
I’m joining Susan and a bunch of really talented tablescapers from around the globe again this week for Tablescape Thursday. Please join us!
Halloween is a week away!
I will admit it: Halloween is not my favorite. As a kid I wondered why we had to go from door-to-door like street urchins. Why couldn’t all the neighbors just toss all their candy into a huge cauldron in the center of the subdivision and let kids take turns dipping it out? Walking from door to miserable door, enduring the snarky “And what are you dressed as?” remarks, shivering in the inevitable cold because I didn’t want to wear a coat that covered my costume, being frightened half out of my wits (which explains a lot!) by older bullies who thought it was funny to make little kids pee their pants…ugh! To make Halloween that much crazier, my parents would “inspect” our candy before we got to eat it. “Inspect.” Yeah…right. Whatever.
Having said that, I put together a table just the same for your Halloween pleasure/fright. Whatever. I’m going to the store to grab a couple of bags of candy to “inspect” while you look at the pictures!
A full-length black linen creates the appearance of a ghostly “floating” tabletop design.
The use of clear glass and black tabletop accessories further lends to the ethereal “floating” effect. You can pick up clear glass dishes at places like Bed Bath & Beyond or Old Time Pottery. The black stemware used here is just $1 a stem at the Dollar Tree store. Gotta love that place! Lots of bang for the buck…especially in this economy!!!
The close placement of the flatware creates a “chain link fortress” around the table.
Yes…I used the names of some close blogger pals like Vernice at We Three Dogs & Me for place cards. If I have to suffer through this, I’m taking you guys with me! I found the fun little skull place card holders at TJ Maxx.
The dinner menu, of course, has to be pretty nauseating to be effective! The design on the end of the Hampton Silversmith’s black “San Remo” flatware works well with its almost Gothic look.
I have a couple of wrought iron “trees” that come in handy for various centerpieces, and Halloween seems a pretty likely opportunity. The tree holds 20 votives in its “branches.” To give it a spooky look, I added clumps of Spanish moss, lots of skulls from Michaels craft store, and a 6-ft. python slithering from top to bottom. I bought this tree wholesale several years ago, so I can’t tell you where to buy one. Curly willow branches, manzanita branches, or any type of small tree would work just as well, though, to achieve the look.
Lots of delicacies under glass from Dollar Tree including “finger sandwiches” on white with a bit of herbed mayo. Hmmm…this food looks a bit undercooked! The glass covered pedestals are from Hobby Lobby and Marshalls. (Dollar Tree and Deal$ – owned by the same company – are both GREAT resources for fun, affordable props!)
Votive candles lined up along the deck ledge with a skeleton here and there provide a little more ambience.
A look from below.
As if on cue as I finished up, a huge black cat darted from under the deck, across the yard, over the fence and into the neighbor’s yard. Oh, crud. The bully made me pee my pants…again!
Other Halloween tablescapes on this site:
“Ravenous Raven Graveyard Feast“
“Hollywood Fright Night“
I’ll be joining my spooky pals at Susan’s Tablescape Thursdays again this week, so please stop by to see how much they enjoy decorating for Halloween!
Tablescapes at Table /Twenty-One 