A Holiday Table ~ Rustic Handmade Elegance in Red, White and Black

  ~ Some more ideas for setting your table for Christmas dinner, a holiday brunch or winter get-together -

start with fabulous red dishes! 

 I found these in the sale section at the supermarket a couple of years ago.  They were a great deal and are so pretty on the table! 

 

Choosing a theme or colors will help organize you and tie your decorations together making your table the talk of the party! Pick something you love or already have pieces on hand to use - this should be fun to prepare! I never throw out anything I think I might use on a table and am always picking up little bits and pieces on sale.  Just this week, I found four wooden 3D snowflake ornaments, three aqua blue and one pale golden yellow - I just know they will find a place on one of my tables in the near future!

For this table (and party), I found the most gorgeous heavy cotton fabrics in patterns of fresh red and white - they have an almost Scandinavian flair. I designed three patterns for ornaments, one each for a heart, dove and skinny evergreen. Handsewn and decorated with snowflake cutouts and stamped initial charms, they are a charming personalized party favor as well as pretty decoration for the table!

 

 

I usually set the table in layers. Here, a Christmas red tablecloth is the base.  Brown kraft paper comes next - it's great for sharing an inspiring quote, having guests sign or leave a message as a souvenir of our dinner or a canvas of entertainment for the kids to draw and color.  I use this a lot! Wide ribbon or wrapping paper runners are a colorful, easy and inexpensive way to add a third layer of interest. This sparkly red and white striped ribbon was in a gift wrap basket at the grocery store (and will reappear this season somewhere else!).

 

Black felt snowflake place mats anchor the centerpiece of the table. A mix of ornaments, candles, branches, holiday napkins, white candles and a sprinkling of silver glitter finish it off!

 

Let's Eat!

Christmas Dinner in Who-Ville

When we built our new house, one of my dreams was to have a dining room that would accommodate EVERYONE for Christmas dinner...and this Christmas, it was so! It was our absolute pleasure to host 23 members of our family and friends for my favorite Christmas day ever! A Who-ville theme seemed perfect -- I could just see all the Who's seated at their long tables filled with fun, family, friends and fabulous food! Six different families (all related in some way by at least one member) gathered at our house and of course, everyone needed to know their proper Who name... www.grinched.com provides a great tool to help come up with these fun names -- we had Dibble-Moo-Who's and Tickle-Poo-Who's and Giggle-Boo-Who's coming out of the woodwork. I made nametags for everyone and the kids made sure everyone had their own. I also found this great lime green Grinchy tree at HomeSense and couldn't resist. My friend gave me the other funky one (I must admit, I'm a bit of a Who-Ville addict) a couple of years ago.

Red and white, stripes and dots and any wonderfully unique ornament I could find filled the tree, table and house. I even found some great red dishes in the clearance section of the grocery store and picked them up too-- LOVE them!

...and here is the crowd!