winter white

On Christmas Eve, the day of celebration in Sweden, we had a very nice and quiet - I don't want to say dinner because we started around noon and finished sometime after 8pm, so let's go with day of food with my family. To match my Christmas decorations, and incidentally also the gifts, I decorated the table with all white on white on white on white. Delicate and crisp and pretty was the way to go this year for me.













Resources:
White plates from IKEA
Glass plates from local second hand shop
Lace mats from H&M Home
Crocet snowflakes from La Rinascente in Milano, Italy
Wreath from local florist Anna Gouteva
Small wreaths are styrofoam wrapped in white lace
Votives from IKEA wrapped in white lace
Candle holders from IKEA
Glassware from IKEA

autumn dinner table featured

This is just a quick note to say that YAY! one of my table scapes was featured at Hostess With the Mostess last week. Since I was away I missed the day it went live, hence my late posting.

The HWTM blog is my favourite place to go to when looking for inspiration for party decorations so being featured is a very, very huge honour for me. And, yeah, the excitement when I found out was as big as the first time I was featured.

Just click on the photo to go to the post.

an autumn themed dinner party

The husband likes to celebrate his birthday every year with a dinner party. This year we held the party for parents and siblings (and still managed to have 15 guests) and had a lovely time. The food, curtesy of the husband, was lovely as always and I even managed to make an apple and pecan cheesecake (although I used a different recipe for the actual cheesy part).

Now, knowing me you can be sure that I needed to decorate at least a little bit for the dinner table.
I wanted a kind of updated vintage feel with an autumn touch. My key words were doilies, sheet music, and pumpkins. Here's the finished result.















I used inherited crochet doilies as a runner on the brown linen table cloth. Together with the white china, alternated in different shapes, it made a nice contrast against the dark base.

I cut leaves from sheet music paper (sheet music pattern from Graphic sfairy printed on white cardstock). The larger ones were shaped by rolling and folding around a pencil and then placed at each setting. The smaller ones were glued together and strung on into a garland and then draped along the doily runner.

I put small succulents, wrapped with a lace ribbon, under upside down wine glasses and used the foot cum top as a candle holder. To compliment that I put the same type of candles inside another type of wine glass.

I found super cute little white pumpkins and placed them on brown lace in small glass dessert stands.

Big white faux roses were placed in glasses wrapped in white lace. The last part of the centerpiece was a ball candle in a pedestal glass bowl filled with pebbles.

The low centerpieces make for a great focal point that isn't in the way for conversation.
I feel this turned out close to my vision, a contemporary version of a traditional style.

seasonal dinner party decorations

Almost a little shy of a year ago I shared two photos of a table setting I did for a birthday party (the husband's). In that post I said I would dedicate a whole post about the table itself. Well, here we are a year later, and can decidedly say that I never did. Ha! But I thought, with autumn at our doorstep and holidays coming up, it would be neat to take a look at it now.
The whole theme was set by the invite that had a very distinct autumn look. The style was very classic and simple, with the pumpkin as the main focus and a very subtle damask pattern on the brown background.


The decorations followed suit, and I went with a brown linen table cloth and a runner in green silk with a brown velvet print. White china, glass candle holders with green candles and flowers that matched the theme. The napkins were carefully chosen to match the colours, and folded in a novel way to be able to combine two different kinds. Each place setting had a menu card in the same style as the invite.
















The food you ask? Well, courtesy of the husband we had a fantastic meal; soup of Jerusalem artichoke served in the coffee cups seen above with a prosciutto crostini, and a wonderful stew with veal and mushrooms.

All in all it was a good dinner party.

please sit at my table

At the beginning of August my sister and her boyfriend came from Italy to visit (it's been long enough that she has been living there for her to not say she is coming home when she comes here), and we had a little welcome party with the family at our house. I set the table for dinner in a soft colour scheme with a bit of a traditional feel to it.














Pretty linens in a beige colour with floral tone on tone embroideries set the foundations.
I used store bought paper doilies under the plates. I had wanted to use crochet ones but I didn't have any that were big enough. I think they work well enough, but had it been a fancy party I would have gone out of my way to find the real deal.
I made paper bows, following these instructions, from scrapbook paper from the Bella Bella collection by Carina Gardner.
I put silk roses in small vases with lace covers in the center of the table.
As it was in the middle of the summer I opted out of candles, it would only get too hot and we certainly didn't need them for light.

I generally like to keep the table fairly clutter free. Sure, it's pretty with lots of stuff on there, but it's totally not practical if you want bottles, salt & pepper shakers, condiments and so on ready available for the guests. This was especially true for this dinner, with wine lovers, beer drinkers, and coke addicts in the family.

I liked the outcome. It was simple and down to earth, calm, pretty, comforting, and it reminded me, in an updated 21st century kind of way, of the kind of table settings I saw when I was a child.

Rockin' it

A while back my husband asked me to help him with some nice details for a rock themed party he was planning for his friends. And, who am I to say no to party planning?

The first thing to do was of course the invites.








The party itself got a little more glam than I think he had first planned on but it turned out pretty cool nonetheless.

To make it through the whole night it was decided that food was to be served; homemade burgers with potato wedges and coleslaw. This meant we needed to focus on the dinner table.



Instead of real table linens I used a black sheet from IKEA that I grunged up with paint splatter. This was very easy to do. I simply diluted some acrylic paint and used different sized paint brushes and practically threw the paint on the sheet.

The grunge was paired with some glam in the shape of black glossy candle sticks and black candles. We got the holders dirt cheap at local thrift stores and spray painted them with all purpose black paint.

The skulls were bought in a party supplies store and were also spray painted with the same black paint. The finishing touch, and the only splash of colour were the deep red roses placed in low tea light holders.





Each table setting got silver chargers and simple white plates to contrast all the black. Black napkins to match and a paper scroll banner for custom made for each guest with an excerpt from a rock song that fit each person.










The theme was carried through to the bottle buffet with the black sheet and the black candles. The buffet was placed in front of a large mirror wich created a cool effect making the buffet look bigger in the mirrored image.









Even rock dudes need sweets so I added some matching candy in the shape of skulls, bottles, and stars. Don't ask me if licorice actually goes all that well with bourbon whiskey tastewise. It looked good though.



Wine and beer bottles got custom labels in the same motif that was used on the invites and scroll banners on the table. The text on the banner on the wine bottles is a reference to the cheap red wine that Guns n' Roses used to drink while writing songs.





I also designed cards for the music quiz that was put together for the party and it followed the same design as the invites.



I really wish I could have shared photos in a more fitting setting (no glaring sunlight) but seeing as this was a party for guys only, I had to leave the premises well before the guests arrived and the sun set. I secretly wish I could have stayed ... LOL!