Holiday Tablesetting Sneak Peek

I thought I would pop in with a little sneak peek of one of my tablesettings that I will be doing over the holidays. I typically do quite a few tablesettings since I have several sets of Christmas dishes and I also see my DD more during this holiday season for dinner.

This is actually a pretty inexpensive table setting to do, everything you see here is glass, You would be amazed how pretty an all glass table setting can be. Another perk of this style of setting is that you can add in any accent color you may want to use so if someone can't afford a patterned set of Christmas dishes you can still acheive a holiday look effortlessly by the accents you decide to add in.

More Christmas tree tips

I'm sorry these tips are slow coming, my internet connection is giving me alot of grief these days.

Placing balls in the inner part of a tree is something a lot of folks don't do, many people only decorate the outside limbs of the tree. When you only decorate the outside, you loose seeing a depth or 3D-dimension type of look to your tree. You also loose the inner brightness caused from putting in these simple reflective balls.

What I do is put either inexpensive gold or silver balls(depending on my color theme) you can buy in sets most anywhere. The gold or silver balls give the needed light reflection you need in the darkest part of the tree, the christmas lights reflecting off of the balls gives an inner brightness and warmth to a tree. For a "bling" look I would suggest at least 50 to 75 balls placed in the inner part of a 6.5 ft tree (of course you can use less, this is just how I like to decorate mine.) As you can see from the photos above, try to place the balls in those bare areas and the area right next to the trunk of the tree, this also hides the ugly wrapped pole (in this photo there are only a few showing now for ease in showing you hope to place them, but you can be assured I will be adding much more.)

Go back and take look at the pic again, do you see all the tiny bright light specks being reflected in the ball? Just the few balls pictured have already reflected alot of light.

Christmas Decorating, it begins....

I have been asked by a few folks for some tips on how I decorate my trees. the photo above is a single short "garland" of 12 connected poinsettas, that I purchased at Walmart a few weeks ago for only $7.00, a great buy for a hundred dollar look.

On the couch is 4 sets (and a poinsetta bunch of flowers for decorating on my wreaths)

Here is the strip of flowers placed on the tree, I will probably tuck it in a bit more, and then I will add in the other garlands tip to tip, spiraling down the tree in a loose "S" pattern. This is a great thing to do especially if you don't have alot of ornaments yet, because it makes a great "filler".

Now, if you did not want to do the spiral garland look, you can also detach the flower heads and place them evenly thoughout your tree (which I have done with great success too with last years pink tree).

I will post more later, as I progress.

Christmas in Cream, Gold and crystals

This is just a little sneak peek at my Christmas theme this year. And tieing in from my previous post, another example of using the stacking plates for holidays. They really are versatile.

Why am I posting something Christmasy this early? I have found that I need to start way ahead for my planning. Since stores get out Christmas decor so early, I have found if I don't shop early for my decorations the best ornaments and such are gone way before December 1st! Right now it is very difficult to find "off white/cream colored ornaments, so if any do show up I plan on being the first there to claim them. :) I like planning my table scapes early too, that way when the big day comes, I'll set the table the day before saving me the time to concentrate on cooking, and an added benefit of that is it really puts me in the mood for the big festive dinner I share with my DD and her SO. Now that my DD has moved out, my big day is usually Christmas Eve, this was a very difficult transition for me, as Christmas Day was the traditional day for all the fun and festivities, but since she is on her own, she now wants the "day" to her and her SO, plus she needs to accomodate his family too. The change has been "hard" on me I must admit, are any of you going thru this right now?

Fall Decorations for your home

This is my Fall stacking plates centerpiece/vignette, I really enjoy doing these because they are easy, don't take up too much space, and it's a real eye catcher.

I love to use this as a center piece for my dining room table or my coffee table, but it could just as easily be the highlight of your buffet table too.

I showed them first to a forum group I visit a few years ago, the were so popular there so I decided to do a tutorial, so I hope that you, dear blog reader will enjoy it too.

These cake plates can be used for any holiday, Christmas, Fall, Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, Easter, Birthdays, Baby Showers, Bridal Showers, etc, they really are quite versitile. And of course you can use them for what they are ment for..food.

Part 1:

Gather up what you have choosen to do up your cake plates with. The key to a pretty over all design is to keep in the choosen theme, in this case it is a Fall theme.

I used a Christmas tree topper in my chosen colors, christmas birds, acorns, leaves, glass rocks and jewels, mini beaded pumpkins, a fairy, pine cone ornaments, faux grapes, the next 2 pictures show what I used, I did have a little left over, but I did use alot as you can see.

These are the empy stacking plates, the top piece is a 99 cent sundae cup I purschased at Walmart. The actual stacking plates came 3 in a box from Walmart(a few yrs ago). But you can order on line I think from Target for them too, Linens and Things, and Bed Bath and Beyond also has carried these plates. The average cost for the set is about $20.00.

Photo of the 3 stacking cake plates together.

Part 2: Start loading up, this is a few close-ups so you can see where I placed some things.

In the sundae cup I place in some of the glass jewels as filler before I put in the tree topper ornament. You can get the glass jewels at Walmart and craft stores.

Again, the finished product.

I hope you enjoyed this and that it was helpful. If you have any questions just leave me a note on the comments area.