Halloween Dinner for Two

 

This very cute tablecloth followed me home from the floral wholesaler the other day.  I swear it did!  I made a vow to resist any and all fall or Halloween décor or dishes this year.  I have many more than I can even use and it's ridiculous.  But hey!  Take a look at this......you'll understand.  It's black and white "dupioni silk" (probably polyester) edged with this fresh orange burlap.  Then these appliques and checked ribbon run all around the 70" sides.  Perfect for a topper on a round table or catty-cornered on a long one.  I layered it on my dining room table over a black linen tablecloth. 

 

Mr. Pressed Pants and I were the only ones here for Halloween dinner and I knew we wouldn't have any trick-or-treaters, so we had a simple dinner of chili and salad and apple crisp.  We always had chili when the girls were small, so we could eat early and get out for the goodies, so I simply give in to nostalgia and fix chili every year.  These unusual black and white plates were perfect for this cloth.  They were made by Rocher and I bought them at Homegoods a couple of years ago.

 

Here's the bowl I used for chili with a black and white plate from Target in between.

Then I added my black handled flatware, also from Target.

 

Look closely at the napkin rings.  They are fangs from Party City.

 

This stemware is etched and colored black.  I broke three of these stems this summer, so I'm down to five now. :-(  You can see the vintage salt and pepper shakers here too.  Our girls loved these so much.

 

The flowers were some bright orange Gerbera daisies in a bright white Chippendale vase that I had left from the Halloween Luncheon I gave the day before.  (Post to follow.)

 

Then we sat and got all sappy remembering all of the costumes our girls wore through the years.  For the record, Big Bird was my favorite!

 

 

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French Country Cottage



Too Much???

If you saw this in your neighborhood, you would probably think nothing of it.

But, what about this......

and this.......

and this?????

Yep, all of these blow-ups and more are on one yard in a beautiful neighborhood in Atlanta. Can you imagine? 

This same home goes all out for Christmas, too with what seems like hundreds of these blowups.  I did a post about it here.  The noise alone from all of those motors is unimaginable! 

You'll never find even one blow-up in my yard, let alone a hundred, but there are lots and lots of people who get a great deal of enjoyment from their efforts.

The neighbors are less than charmed, but for a few weeks, there are thousands of children who are in awe of this spectacle.  What do you think?

Purple and Pumpkins in the Pasture

 

The Romantic in me has always wanted to serve a meal in our pasture.  We keep it mown most of the time, but right now, it has a little "texture" to it, so I thought it would be a good time to give it a go.  I invited a friend who is always up for anything to join me on this beautiful day for lunch.

 

I wanted to use this purple transferware with some purple mums.

 

Even though it's not a typical fall color, the design says "harvest" to me.

 

I especially love the border design.  This is the rim of the soup bowl, in which I served a light melon soup since it is still a bit warm here.

The cream embossed acorns are my favorite.  This is from Crate and Barrel a couple of years ago.  If anyone has a dinner plate to sell, I'd love to replace the one I broke.

 

The bottom of the stack is an amethyst glass charger from Penney's Home store. 

 

The tablecloth is cream burlap and I used my cream-handled flatware that is a knock-off of a beautiful French flatware.

 

The lavender stemware is from Pier One and the short goblet is from World Market. 

 

On the bread ad butter plate, I used these wonderful knives that my daughter gave me for Christmas last year.  They are really special, but I'm not sure what exactly they are made of.  The blade seems to be brass and the handle is probably porcelain in a basket weave pattern.  I know they are fruit knives but for today they were butter knives.  

This photo is very washed out, but I included it to show the entire table.

As a centerpiece, I started with a large amethyst glass bottle filled with pampas grass,...

and added eggplant, white pumpkins, lavender mums, a dry white hydrangea, white wheat,...

and some beautiful purple and green kale.

The eggplant doesn't show up much here.  I just piled things up and the mums aren't even in water. You can see another tablescape I did with this china and some baby eggplant here.

As I was setting up, I had a friendly visitor.

To add to the color theme, I added some purple mums.  I also added a white pumpkin to this, but it didn't make it into this photograph!

 

Ok......now I've gotten this experience out of my system.   

 

It was a long........

 

LONG way to drag everything out here just for the ambience.  I brought the food out in a picnic basket after we had a glass of tea in the garden.  Then.......everything had to come IN!!!!  Yep....got it out of my system for sure.

 

 

I’m partying at:

Wow Us Wednesdays; Open House Party; Let’s Dish;  Tutorials, Tips and Tidbits; Be Inspired;Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop; Home and Garden Thursday;Home Sweet Home; Tablescape Thursday; Feather Your Nest Friday; Fabulously Creative Friday; Show and Tell Friday; Seasonal Sundays

 

Juliska Look-Alike

 

This is certainly my lucky day!!!!  I've been mooning over this Juliska pattern that I've seen in lots of high end stores for some time.  My favorite display was one I recently saw in Neiman's where they showed it with a very grayed down lavender.  Beautiful!

This is another similar pattern by Juliska called Berry and Thread.  I think it must be one of their oldest and most popular.  This five piece place setting is $141.  Not totally outrageous, but since I have several cupboards full of nothing but white dishes, they were not coming home with me.

This is a photo from pinterest that I pinned with similar dishes.  They weren't identified in the linked post, but I love the way they are used.

 

Well, it pays to keep your eyes open!  This morning, as I was running into Kroger to do the very unglamorous job of looking for garbage disposal deodorant, these plates jumped out at me!  At $1.99 each, how long do you think it took me to gently place 8 dinner plates and 8 salad plates into my cart?  Folks.......that is not a typo.  $1.99 each!

And for another $2.99 I grabbed these salt and pepper shakers.  They had other serving pieces, but I passed on them. 

 

 

I found these real-deal Juliska s/p shakers on line and I think I remember they were $65. 

There's no denying that I'd far rather have the real Juliska, and that it is no doubt a much higher quality, but you better believe that I'm feeling great about this score!  Now, if I could only find Juliska's Country Manor (in blue, please) knocked off at $1.99 a plate, I'd be delirious!


Stags in the Courtyard

 

My favorite tables that I have set have almost all been fall designs, and this one is no exception.   

I have never used this courtyard on the side of the house for dining, but today I decided to take the drop leaf table from the bar out to the courtyard and host a small, casual dinner party there.

These new salad plates are the star of this table.  I found them at Homegoods the other day, and knew that they were made for me.

As soon as I saw the stags and the acorns, I was putting them in the cart as fast as I could.

Come to mama!

I knew that this copper pan would be the perfect start for the centerpiece.

 

The orange/brown roses and the bronze football mums were exactly what I was looking for, but the green spider mums were a substitute for small green/white kale that I envisioned.  I thought I'd find them at the floral wholesaler, but they didn't have any.  So I moved on to that other wonderful floral source, Costco!  All of these flowers were from there, and the filler is from my yard. 

The tablecloth is made from leftover fabric from our office draperies.  It's a wool plaid from Ralph Lauren.  The rattan charger is from World Market, the cream plate is from Pottery Barn, and this light wooden flatware is from Martha Stewart's line at K-Mart, many years ago.

 

I started with a dark brown napkin, changed to a green napkin, then decided to go with this burnt orange one, used banner-style under the salad plate.  There is so much red in the color of the stag that I needed to go with this color and it worked great since it is also in the plaid of the tablecloth.  Are you wondering what that turquoise green stuff is at the bottom of the photo???  It's my new Vince Camuto driving mocs!  I'm standing on a chair for this very artistic photo, ya know!  Oh......you do it too!

I thought I'd use my glassware that is etched with stags, but these stems looked much better.

But these guys did get to come to the party.  They hold taupe colored tapers tonight.

Our everyday faux bois salt and pepper shakers worked just fine for this table.

And these plates were my choice for dessert of pumpkin pie.

I added some mums and pumpkins for a little extra "fall".

I had contemplated using a sisal rug under this, but truthfully, I didn't want to drag it outside.  We didn't miss it!

Nothing fancy, but I think we all enjoyed the change of venue.

It's so nice to enjoy the evening with perfect weather, good friends, and a location where we've never dined before tonight.  There's just no end of the ways to celebrate fall.

 

I’m partying at: Wow Us Wednesdays; Open House Party; Let’s Dish;  Tutorials, Tips and Tidbits; Be Inspired;Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop; Home and Garden Thursday;Home Sweet Home; Tablescape Thursday; Feather Your Nest Friday; Fabulously Creative Friday; Show and Tell Friday