Sunday, November 21, 2010

Dare to DIY - Week Two

Dare to . . . Entertain!

Week two of Kim's blog challenge is not my favorite. I don't really *DO* table decor so much. Ask Jen Wallheimer - the poor girl was paired with me for "Girl's Night Out" last year at Metro, and our table was awesome . . . thanks to her! Admittedly, I am not too good at this.

Plus, I like practicality and ease of clean up. Napkins that you can throw away. That kind of thing. (Speaking of napkins - the only reason that I even had any cloth ones for this week is because I am hand-making a lot of Christmas gifts this year and one of the things that I am making required napkins. So there ya go.)

Anyway, remember the 30 gallons of acorns from last week? You know the ones that are ALL OVER MY YARD??:


Well, I decided to do a tree/acorn theme for my table. I was going to make a tapestry that said "From little acorns mighty oaks grow." to hang behind the table, but I realized about halfway through the week that I was going to run out of time to complete it. Sewing usually does not get done in one week at my house.

Especially since my table usually looks like this:


Ha ha, THAT was a total joke. More than likely, it looks like this:


And that is on a good day.

Anyway, so I went ahead and pretended to have Thanksgiving and set a table. I must admit it was lots of fun. Here's what it ended up looking like:


Ta-da!

The place setting and silverware are my normal day-to-day dishes. The placemats are just fabric that I cut in a circle with pinking shears, like so:


It took some of the acorn people from last week (yes, there were more) and hot glued a (clean) hair tie to the back and used those for "napkin rings":


They are so fun because they are all different:


I also did pretend placecards. I just hot glued five acorns together with a space to slip in a card. Then I placed them on a fall leaf:


The placecards were modeled after the "thanks" cards on Nora's Thanksgiving Tree, which I created based off of this one and placed on the table. I created this using a large mason jar, sticks and acorns from my yard, different colored paper, and cloth ties:
This is my favorite thing on the table. It's so cute!! I have gotten so many compliments.


I also made matching candle holders out of smaller jars:


I had an acorn tin I wanted to use as well, so I added it. Why not?? More is more:


All of the centerpieces were place in my AtHome America Big Fork Lodge Candle Tray, which I LOVE SO MUCH and will gladly sell you HERE at my website. Shameless plug. :)

All in all, I think my first table went well. Now you see why I had no time to create anything ELSE this week!


I also took a page from one of the other bloggers from last week and made a turkey hair bow for Noranator:


Even though her hair is barely long enough for a pony, she'll have it in on Thursday. :)

I will post pictures.

Until next time . . .

4 comments:

Kim @ NewlyWoodwards said...

Wow! You really went all out this week. I love it all. Nora will be adorable with her pony holder.

I'm also really liking how you used clean ponytail holders for napkin rings. They look perfect with your acorn people.

And, the tree in the middle? Love it. Looks great. I'm also a huge fan of the tray. I love the size of it. If I wasn't put on a no-house-spend diet for me, I'd be all over it.

Thanks for linking up! I really appreciate it.

(I also wanted to tell you that your comments seem to be acting up. I've had to type this in twice. I think that may be why no one else has commented. I think it has something to do with the pop-up for word verification when you click post comment. It won't post and then I have to refresh. Just thought I'd tell you. Because comments make us all happy, right? And, I'm sure folks wanna tell you how great your table looks.)

Emily said...

Looks wonderful!! I love it - the chargers are so cute and your little girl is darling!

jen @ homeinthecountry said...

It looks great - I think the tree is my favorite, but how fun are those little acorn people!?!

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed your great ideas for using acorns. I have a huge oak tree in my back yard and the grandchildren are coming over for dinner Wednesday evening, so I think I'll get all of the supplies together and have them make the napkin holders and placecards for Thanksgiving breakfast.
Have a blessed holiday-Mooch Gay (Kim's aunt)