This Easter represents a milestone for our family. My daughter is hosting Easter dinner.
I’ll be helping her to create a beautiful table for her party, but since we have vastly different styles, I just HAD to set my own table with our traditional Easter decorations — my collection of Easter bunnies and fruit plates.
It’s time for a tablescape with a birdy theme, and I’ve been collecting just the accessories to create it!
Is it spring yet?
The fact that my yard is finally rid of all of its little snowpiles makes me desperately hope that spring is on its way. Just last week I took this photo of the last remaining snow in my yard.
I was so bummed out by the weather that I never got around to setting the table last week when I took this photo of my centerpiece. Those beautiful tulips have gone to meet their maker.Thank goodness, between the final melting of the snow and my camera class yesterday, I was newly energized to create a spring tablescape!
I’ve been taking a photography class in a local adult education program, and the most important thing I’ve learned is that I need to look for the light.
Look for the light…
I was setting up a tablescape and suddenly realized that the shadows from the late afternoon sun made a very interesting photo to share with my class. I thought I’d share it with you, too.
Happy Spring!
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Today I’m thrilled to share a conversation about tablescaping with my niece, Jessie Weaver. Music Man and I just spent a wonderful long weekend in Chattanooga visiting family, as well as doing some touring in Atlanta. I enjoyed helping Jessie prepare for a party, and afterwards, Jessie wrote this guest post about her experiences, entitling it “Tablescaping for Dummies.” I beg to differ. The blessing of creating a tablescape is that there are no wrong ways — or dumb ways — to do it. There is just YOUR way. And that’s what happened last weekend.
Jessie: When you are a self-confessed imbecile when it comes to home design, it’s a little intimidating to have your aunt, who blogs about tablescapes, come visit while you’re preparing to throw a dinner party. Really, though, it was a great blessing. The Expert went through my cabinets and drawers, helping me throw together a fantastic tablescape using only what I had. Continue reading
One of the things we said when we married thirty one years ago was that we would never live in a split-level house in the suburbs. Well, guess what? We were wrong. When the time came to buy our empty nester house, a split level offered us the most bedrooms and baths, along with flexible living spaces that would suit our musical lifestyle. The problem is that although we have lots of spaces, every space in the house is a little small — and that includes our entry hall.
This is the after photo. I don’t have any good before photos.
It’s still snowing here in Chicagoland, and the weather reporters are calling for more snow today and again on Saturday. Under these circumstances, it’s only natural that my thoughts turn to white dishes.
Actually, I was intrigued by Yvonne’s post earlier this week at Stonegable where she enumerated ten reasons to collect white dishes. I loved her layers of different patterns of white, so I tried to showcase my own white palette. Continue reading
The Christmas tree is put away, the comfortable chairs are back in the window, and there’s a fresh coating of snow outside. It seems like the perfect day to take a visit to Germany in the Winter’s Blue Tablescape.
I’ve talked about my next door neighbor and her dishes many times. The tableware and decor items that I selected (and salvaged from destruction) from her estate sales have been sources of inspiration for tablescapes, including Paperwhites in a Punch Bowl, Family Reunion Gifts Bring a Sunflower Tablescape, and most recently, Downton Abbey Tablescape for the Servantless Home Decorator. Her house remodel is almost finished by the flippers and it is up for sale; hopefully we will soon have a lovely family living in Oksana’s home and bringing life back to it after almost six years. Today I’m honoring her once again with a tablescape inspired by her set of Hutschenreuther collectors’ plates, each with a different scene from a German village. Continue reading
What is it about the color pink that make girls’ hearts go pitty-pat?
Pink wedding dresses, pink shoes, pink handbags, pink upholstery — it’s all about pink for little girls and grown women. There’s the pink aisle at the toy store filled with Barbie and her accessories — and remember when our craft stores were replacing Christmas merchandise with pink and red Valentine’s Day stuff long before December 25?
Pink isn’t all about being sweet and girly. It’s the symbol of strength and fortitude when applied to fighting breast cancer. I remember the first pink suit I bought when I felt I was sufficiently established in my career to get away with wearing pink — and I never went back. In fact, I’m just about to add a new pink blazer to my wardrobe in an unstructured knit to match my new more casual lifestyle — a lifestyle in which my inspiration word is STRONG. Continue reading
Setting the table in Downton Abbey style was lots of fun. Hearing from so many of you was wonderful. Having my husband shout at the television last night, saying, “They’re measuring the silverware just like you said!” was even more fun.
And so was actually eating at the table.
I will admit that I took down the big candlelabra and replaced it with a five-candle silver candlelabra so that we could actually see each other. Unlike what happened in Downton Abbey last night — remember when they “turned the table”? — my guests were allowed to talk across the brunch table. It’s just not that big.
We removed all the dishes from the staged table in order to serve the brunch plated. Since there were only five of us, it was easy to plate at my kitchen island and serve directly to the table. My husband made a wonderful footman and we had a relaxed couple of hours. We even broke every Downton Abbey rule by keeping the kitchen television on (muted, of course), so Music Man could keep track of the football games. Continue reading
