Thanksgiving Table Two Ways -

Last Thursday we had a wonderfully fun ladies dinner at our church! To get everyone in the spirit of the holidays, several (as in around 50) ladies volunteered to host a table. The job of the hostess is to decorate the table – from linens, to centerpiece, all the way down to flatware. We do this at least once a year usually in the spring, but on occasion we get to do it twice!!! It’s so much fun to see everyone’s talent and interpretation of the season. 🙂

Since we are hosting Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year, I decided to go with a fall theme for my table – knowing I could carry over some of those decorations for our dinner. Here is what my table looked like that night.

Since the table are round and seat eight I decided to use four gingham runners, so each place setting had that black and white background. The black and white check that Lindsay used here was my first inspiration and these napkins I spotted at Williams Sonoma

were my inspiration for the plum accents. I love plum for fall!!

I brought everything home and decided to play with what things would look like on my table. Since my table is black I first needed to lighten the background. I have searched for an inexpensive square tablecloth for years. They don’t exist. This year I had an epiphany! Canvas drop cloth = tablecloth. Perfect neutral color, good size (cut-down to a square) and perfect price!! {just make sure you don’t get one that is too heavy because it will be very stiff – mine is 7oz and a good weight}

I decided to keep it a little simpler at our house and only use two runners. Most likely there will be an additional table that will get the other runners.

The place settings are very simple – gold charger + dollar tree white plate. Plum napkins that I made myself with gold top stitching, small grapevine for napkin rings, and DIY gold-tipped feathers.

Then I decided to play around with some other pumpkins that didn’t make the initial table cut.

Don’t forget to try using different things to vary the height of your items. A candle stick and a cake plate do the trick here. 🙂

I’m still not sure exactly what will show up on our actual table, but it really helped to try things out. Visual, visual, visual. I can’t help myself!!

We are gearing up for some cold weather here in the next couple of days. How about you?? I know some parts of the country has already seen snow – not ready for that at all!!