Valentine's a Deux

After a small dinner party for friends on Saturday, we had just the two of us for dinner on Valentine's Day itself.  

It's been unusually cold here, so I set the table in the living room in front of the fire place.  I've thought of doing this many times, but the reality is that it is just too hot most evenings.

These dishes by Cynthia Rowley were an easy choice.  I bought them before Christmas, thinking they would be a great Christmas selection, but never used them.  I love that they are gold rimmed and  sort of formal, but I find them fresh and a bit whimsical as well.

Especially when you add the salad plate.

You can just see the small appetizer plate that I added and used for our shrimp cocktail.  Here's the napkins that a guest sent us after a dinner party several years ago.  I thought they were perfect for this table.

The glasses were a red vintage stem for wine......

and these white speckled water glasses.  

This mis-matched silverplate flatware showed up again.  Here's a disclosure:  I substituted a steak knife for these beautiful knives before we sat down to eat.  Mr. Pressed Pants cooked fillets on the grill and that would have been too much for these fragile old knives. 

A red bread and butter plate and some glass confetti hearts added some spunk to the table.

These flowers made another appearance from the night before.  Actually, many of these items were "re-runs".  The dishes and linens were about the only things different, but they change the look of the table greatly.

A simple Waterford crystal wine coaster was used the night before, too.

This touch of silver was lovely in the firelight.   

I used a plain white linen caterer's cloth with this special cloth over it.  My mother made it for me years ago, and I've used it for many special events through the years, even engagement parties and bridesmaids luncheons for our daughters.  

Here's a  picture of the table in front of our fireplace.  It's only a card table, but I brought in chairs from the dining room.

This one is taken from the upstairs hallway through the gate in the wall.

See it here?

This is taken from the same place, but a bit closer.  Doesn't it look inviting?

We might do this more often.

Dinner with friends last night was great, but you can't beat an evening with just the one you love. 

I meant to put this on the last post.  It's our front door. 

And this is the fountain in the front driveway circle.

There's something very romantic about this, and, of course, it gets even sweeter with a bit of tulle and a peony, right? 

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A Cozy New Year's Eve '15

After being away for Christmas, home is where I want to be to ring in the New Year.  Mr. Pressed Pants concurs, so we are having a cozy, intimate, boring New Year's Eve....just the way we like it.  I hadn't given the evening much thought until I was in the grocery store picking up dinner.  I spied these flowers in one of those variety packs in the floral department.  I usually pass those by, but since I had a murky plan to use gold on the table, I picked these up.

Can you see the gold dust on these?  Sort of cheesy, but I like it.  Then to top it off, the plastic champagne bottle takes cheesiness to another level, but hey, it's kind of fun.

For the two of us, I decided to set the table in the keeping room.  I really wanted to set it up in front of the fireplace and the Christmas tree, but it is so warm that we'd never light a fire, so why bother.  Just white and gold keeps it simple.  I haven't used gold much for a very long time, but it is certainly trending now, and so I thought I'd jump on board.

A gold charger is topped with some white Juliska-like china that I got at that very high end store, Kroger!!!!  I bought every bit of it they had.  

The most interesting thing on the table is this sweet little bowl wishing "Happy Holidays".  I bought them last year at Homegoods, but this is the first time I've used them.  A cute little gold doily added a bit more sparkle to the look.  I thought they would be perfect for peppermint ice cream with chocolate sauce, a Peterson family tradition.

The flatware I chose was my favorite mis-matched silverplate with these ivory handled knives.  

And the napkins are a gold, sparkly fabric that doesn't show up very well in this photo.

These napkin rings were a gift from a dear, young friend as a thank you for giving her wedding shower.  Aren't they wonderful?  They are a bay leaf design from Art Tables.

Here's a prime example of what makes a high-low table.  The champagne flutes are from Tiffany, and the wine glasses are Waterford........

but these white spotted tumblers are from Old Time Pottery.  One dollar apiece.  Yep.  I love the mix.

We needed some candlelight to set the mood, so I chose these faux bois tapers that I even forgot I had.

I set them in these Baldwin brass candlesticks that I haven't used in almost a decade.  I probably have a dozen of them from the days when my decor was Williamsburg, or wanna-be Williamsburg.

This simple little glass pedestal held our dinner rolls.

It doesn't look too charming here, but trust me, when the sun went down and the candles were lit, it was exactly where I wanted to be.

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A Spring Coffee

I just love azalea season, so when I had the opportunity to have a great group of women to our home for coffee, I jumped at the chance to entertain them this month.  

It was just a simple coffee with juice, fruit, and coffeecake, but I really wanted it to celebrate spring.

After deciding on the azaleas as a centerpiece, I used this striped runner from Ikea.  I think it was about $6.00.  Gotta love Ikea!  Then I added these little velvet birds for a little more springness.  Is that a word?  Spell check says it's not.

My favorite china to use this time of year is this Lu-Ray china with its mix of pastels.  It's from the 40's and I've collected it for ages.  You can see the Easter table I set with it here.

The juice glasses are a mix of some wonderful old depression glass ones and some Ikea ones.  They are not carrying this particular color now, but do have this style in some other colors.

The luncheon plates are pretty small, so I put them out for our coffee and fruit.  I guess servings were a lot smaller 60 years ago, as lots of china seems dainty in comparison to today's plates.

I just love to use this mixture of silverplate.  You can see that the keystone shape is the same, but the patterns are different.  I think that makes an interesting table.

You can hardly tell in this photo, but these are light pink.  They iron very easily, so I never hesitate to use them.  Call me crazy, but I'd rather iron napkins than use paper, except for maybe cocktails.

The fruit is on a lettuce patterned platter from Pottery Barn.  I wish I had bought the plates that matched.

Coffee and tea set-up.  This makes it self-serve and keeps things hot for the duration.  Since it is a 2-hour drop-in window for the coffee, this works so much better than a silver service or urn.

Mixed berries.  Yum.

The star of the show was this unassuming blueberry coffeecake.  Seriously.  You have to try this.  No, really, you HAVE to try this.  I thought I had a great recipe for this and then my world was rocked when I ate the version they serve at a funky little restaurant here in Atlanta called The Flying Biscuit Cafe.  It serves  wonderful comfort food, mostly vegetarian, some vegan, and is run by a woman names April Moon.  Don't you love that name?  Well, when I learned that she had a cookbook, I was praying that this recipe was included......and it WAS!  I love many of the recipes, but I must admit that my copy opens automatically to "Cream Cheese Coffeecake".  Here's the recipe:

CREAM CHEESE COFFEECAKE FROM THE FLYING BISCUIT CAFE

Cake Batter:

2 sticks (1 c.) butter, at room temperature

1 c. sugar

2 eggs

2 c. flour

2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

Cake Filling:

2 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese at room temperature

1 egg yolk

1/2 c. sugar

1 t. vanilla

Cake Topping:

1/4 c. sugar

1/2 c. flour

4 T. butter, room temperature

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Lightly grease a 9x13 baking pan.  Set aside.

2.  Make the cake batter.  In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until smooth.  Add eggs one a a time, scraping the bowl well after each addition.  Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and add to the butter mixture.  Beat until flour is incorporated and batter is thick, pale, and creamy.  Set aside.

3.  Make the cake filling.  Using an electric mixer, combine all ingredients.  Mix until sugar is dissolved and filling is smooth.

4.  Make the cake topping.  Combine sugar and flour in a small bowl.  Using a pastry cutter or your fingertips, cut butter into sugar and flour until mixture is crumbly.  Set aside.

5.  Spread half of the cake batter over the bottom of the prepared baking pan.  Then spread the filling over the cake batter.  If you wish to add chocolate chips, peaches, or blueberries, sprinkle them over the filling now.  Using a large spoon, evenly distribute remaining cake batter over filling in small dollops.  Sprinkle entire cake surface with cake topping and bake for 45 minutes.

Serves and satisfies the masses.  You can make this several days ahead, but I recommend refrigerating it.

New Year's Eve 2014

Happy New Year to all of you! 

The table I set this year is very similar to the last two years, but because I got an amazing new toy, it sports a few new touches.  Yep!  I got a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas, and I couldn't resist making some little projects for this table.  First, let me thank my very sweet friend, Amy Barfield for taking time out of her medical practice to teach me the basics of this machine.  She is truly a wonder!  And a thanks to Robin at "All Things Heart and Home" blog for offering a really good bargain for the machine.  I passed it on to several of my friends, and at least two of them purchased one as well.  Now......group lessons! 

While I could have cut this out of vinyl and stuck it on the plate, I elected to cut it from cardstock and simply put the red cut-out on top of the silver glittered circle and sandwich it between the Lenox dinner plate with a platinum border, and a clear glass dinner plate.  You can't see the glass plate, but it's there.  Then I served dinner on the glass plate and that's all I had to wash, and the cut-out stayed nice as well.  (Not like I could re-use it, though.)  The silver chargers are inexpensive plastic ones, but they look better than some.

This is the table: white and silver with just a touch of red.

We almost never have snow in Georgia, so for some reason, this snowflake tablecloth seems silly at anytime other than New Year's Eve, when I pair it with lots of silver.

I added more snowflakes from the dollar store as little coasters under the Waterford goblets.

And, again, in the placecard holder.  I used my favorite mis-matched silverplate.

These cute little bread and butter plates came from the grocery store a couple of years ago. 

Ta-dah!  My other Silhouette project!  I made these napkin rings from the same red card stock.  I'm a little bit proud of this project, as I designed it myself, as my first project and I really, really, really didn't know what the heck I was doing.  You'd never believe how long it took, but I was learning as I went along.  (Sort of a steep learning curve!)  Then we had to have some noisemakers. 

I picked up a dozen red roses from the grocery store and split them into two square clear vases.  A few more flowers would have been nice, but this isn't bad.

Then I positioned this heavy antique silver tray with a mica snow covered scene in the middle of the table, but perpendicular to the length of the table to make it feel more intimate for the three of us.  ( My mom is visiting and at 89, she is too old to go out on the town........come to think of it, so am I.)   

Here's a close-up.  Some of these object are old and precious, and some are from the Dollar Store.

These are my Juliska knock-off white salt and pepper shakers and they look almost like they have snowflakes on them.

And for a little more sparkle, I used this Waterford wine coaster. 

Here's our table.  If I were a good blogger, I would have photo shopped that outlet and cord out of the picture, but I'm keeping it real at A Toile Tale.

May you be blessed beyond belief in 2014!

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