Wednesday 30 November 2011

A Thanksgiving Table Setting, One Week Late: Welcome to the 171th Tablescape Thursday!

I'm a week late but for this Tablescape Thursday I'm sharing the Thanksgiving table setting I had been working on when my camera cat-astrophe occurred. All the pics in this post were taken with the new camera, a Nikon D5100. This camera is super, duper light sensitive, which is why it works so well in low lighting situations. It will take me a little while to get used to the change, so please bear with me while I "learn" the camera.

For this Thanksgiving tablescape I envisioned a soft, sophisticated mix of shiny silvers and browns, with touches of amber.  I usually like bold pops of color in my tablescapes, but I went for a more subtle feel this year.



I never like using the leaf in the table, so this table setting is a little on the cozy side.  You like cozy, right?



Spode Woodland is my favorite pattern for Thanksgiving.


I forgot to take pics of the china without the acorn soup tureen on top, so I borrowed the next two pics from a previous Thanksgiving 'scape.  I added the turkey salad plates to this Woodland collection last year.  Or, was it the year before--I forget now.



Here's the dinner plate.  Another favorite of mine for Thanksgiving is the antler flatware I found on eBay a few years ago.  Since the set only included a fork and knife, I like to mix in the Spode Woodland flatware.



You may recognize the soup tureens.  I've used them previously in this Thanksgiving tablescape.  (Click link to view.)  For that tablescape, I mixed two different colored tureens: gold and brown.  For this table setting I chose to keep it simple, using only the brown.  The napkin rings are new this year, a find from Pottery Barn.  They worked great with this silver/brown/amber color scheme  They are etched with the words, Friends and Family--a perfect sentiment for a Thanksgiving feast.



The beautiful amber-colored stemware is "Breeze Amber" by Noritake.  You may remember it from THIS fall tablescape. Iced tea glass is Waterford, pattern is Araglin.



Spotted these cute antler ornaments at Walmart this year.  I removed the little gold hanging loop.



They made great place card holders for this woodsy table setting.  They also tied in beautifully with my centerpiece--more on that in a sec.  Each ornament was only  $1.97 and included two antlers, so all six place card holders were around $6.  When  you're out ornament shopping, keep your eye out for treasures you can use as place card holders or napkin rings.  It's an inexpensive way to add some creativity and playfulness to your table settings.



Do you recognize the large, mercury-glass, pumpkin candle holders?   They were last used in this Halloween table setting.  They continued the silver theme of this tablescape.  I placed them on either side of a 4-tiered, silverplate server and filled the server with natural elements: pine cones, acorns, nandina, spirea and antlers.



Last year I tried several times to win "shed" antlers on eBay, but alas, someone always managed to outbid me. This year when I saw Pottery Barn was asking $29 for just one faux antler, I decided to try again.  I just couldn't pay that for a fake antler.

As I shopped on eBay, I focused on the auctions for the "shed" antlers.  I really like the idea of using the naturally shed antlers for decorating. If you would like to read more about shed antlers, you can do that HERE.  I ended up winning 4 big, beautiful antlers for $61, the cost of 2 faux antlers at Pottery Barn.




You can see the beautiful coloring on these antlers.  They were still nice and fresh--you can tell because they still have a lot of the brownish coloring, as well as obvious wax rings.  The seller found these in the northwest corner of Minnesota.  I love knowing that.  Does that make me weird. lol   The antler centerpiece ties in with the antler flatware and antler place card holders.  See, there's method to my madness. ;)

If you look on ebay, search for "shed antlers.  Read the descriptions if you want to make sure they are truly shed antlers.  No need to buy faux when you can get the real, naturally shed antlers for a lot less.  I used two in the tiered server centerpiece and two on the table itself.  Something tells me they just may end up on a mantel or in a Christmas wreath this year.



I cut Fire Power nandina from the yard and mixed in some colorful spirea foliage for a tiered centerpiece.  The centerpiece is all natural and includes pine cones and acorns.  These are the acorns I blogged about HERE.  And for the record, no worms, yet.  I'll keep you posted on that.  I'm trying to avoid the "baking-in-the-oven" thing. lol  Check out the post and the comments for more details.



The silverplated tiered server could have used a bit of polishing but I thought the slightly tarnished look worked well with the woodsy theme of this table setting.  That's better than saying I was too lazy to polish it.



I've used this tiered server in a previous Christmas table setting, HERE.  It was nice and shiny for that tablescape.



Hope you enjoyed this Thanksgiving table setting.  Pssst:  Molding was added to this room a while back.  To see the "Before and After" click HERE.



Looking forward to all the beautiful tablescapes posted for this Tablescape Thursday!


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