Dogwood Days

I'm recycling this post done with nests to join Cuisine Kathleen's  linky party featuring birds, eggs, and nests!  Be sure to see her many posts and inspiration from lots of bloggers.

 

Our dogwood trees have been so beautiful, especially the specimen down on our lower terrace.  I've wanted to do a table featuring the dogwood, and I almost waited too late!  The petals are starting to fall and they are definitely past their peak.  

The table is serene with a narrow color spectrum of taupe and white with just a tiny hint of pale robin's egg blue.  Sort of an anti-bunny table!!!  You can see the sideboard decorated for spring in the background.  I posted a tutorial  last year on how I put it together here.

These great place mats were the basis for the color selections.  They are a very light weight, loosely woven linen with this embroidery in each corner.  I found them at Boxwoods in Atlanta, and I'm expecting I'll use them often.

The glassware is a high/low mix that I love.  The wine glasses are from Tiffany's basic line, and the tumblers are from Martha Stewart's line for Macy's from several years ago. The pale, pale aqua color lends just a touch of color.  They are very thin, so I've already broken a couple of them.

I'm using these white faux bois plates again. My last post with them can be seen here.  They look like the cross section of a log.

I added a small bird's nest from Michael's with an aqua speckled faux egg and a fresh dogwood blossom.

The bread and butter plate is a very thin wood grained plate and I added individual butter spreaders that have twig handles.

This light colored, wood handled flatware seemed appropriate for the light colored table.

This  taupe and white checked linen napkin was placed between the plates to give them a bit of contrast.  We brought them back from a street market in Aix in Provence.

These little velvet birds were placed at each place just because I love them so much and I thought they "went with" the eggs and nests.

As you can see, the dogwood was almost past it's prime.  We had a rain the other night and that seemed to give them a case of the spots!

But, when you back off a bit and look at them en masse, they look pretty good.

This birch bark vase seemed to pull the natural elements together.  I couldn't help adding this tiny metal nest with turquoise robin eggs.

It echos this nest on each plate.

The salt and pepper shakers sort of sit in a nest, too.

This seems like a serene table where one might enjoy a refined meal with grown-up conversation with your sophisticated friends, right?  Well, that probably won't be the case here.  Not that I don't have any sophisticated friends, but they aren't coming over tonight, and the conversation will probably be about finding a new yardman and having the driveway resurfaced!

That's ok.  We need to get on top of spring clean-up and repairs sooner rather than later.  May I have your list of dependable repairmen?

Let's eat!

Wish you could be joining us!

The birdies on the window bench are coming!

I'm a little late, but I'm posting here:

and

Tablescape Thursday