A Christmas Tablescape and a Candlelit Tree: Welcome to the 123rd Tablescape Thursday!

Happy Tablescape Thursday! I hope your week has been going great. I haven't even started to think about taking down all the decorations...not looking forward to that job.

Before we say goodbye to Christmas completely, I'm excited to share Cornelia's tree all aglow with real candlelight in her home in Switzerland a few days ago. You may recall from THIS post, each Christmas Eve Cornelia lights real candles on her tree for the first time for the Christmas season. They are lit again each night afterwards. Here's how it looked this Christmas Eve:













Doesn't it just take your breath away? Soooo very beautiful!




Each Christmas, to make room for their tree, Cornelia moves her dining room table and chairs into her drawing room and the tree is set up in the dining room. So Christmas dinner is held in what is normally Cornelia's drawing room. Have you ever been tempted to do that...swap your living room for your dining room?





We're dining by candlelight tonight in Cornelia's beautiful home in Switzerland...




Cornelia shared, "The China is Le Manoir by Villeroy and Boch. The cutlery is silver by Jezler /Reed pattern. The ornaments on the plates are Swiss chocolates."




The side plates are by Royal Copenhagen "Peterchens Weihnachten.






The crystal stemware is by Peill/Germany. Isn't it gorgeous?!







The napkins are Swiss embroidery and the tablecloth is by Le Jacquard Français.




So beautiful by candlelight.




Cornelia, thanks so much for inviting us into your home this Christmas! Each visit has been a fantasy come to life!






Please Read:
If you are participating in Tablescape Thursday, please be sure to add your permalink below, and not your general blog address. To get your permalink, click on your post name. Then just copy and paste the address that shows up in the address bar at the top, into the "url" box for the picture linky. You'll also need to put your e-mail address in, but don't worry, it will not be visible to anyone.

You may see a red X once you enter your link. No one else can see the red X, it's just there in case you make a little mistake and need to delete your link and re-enter it.

If you'd like to use the Tablescape Thursday logo button in your post, just copy and paste it to your computer and upload it to your post as you would any photo. Or, just grab the html code you'll find under the "Join a Party" heading at the top of this blog.

Please, link back to the host blog, Between Naps on the Porch. This is important because it helps those who are visiting your blog, find the other wonderful tablescapes posted for this Tablescape Thursday, thus increasing visits for all participants.

Please, don't add your post name/blog name in ALL CAPS...it tends to create big spaces between the rows of links. Thanks!

Let's try something fun today! Please visit the person who linked before you and after you...that way everyone will get some visits. Hope you'll visit more, of course. :-)


Little Reminder: Thank-you for linking back to this post so the regular visitors to your blog will find all your fellow Blogger's posts linked here for this Tablescape Thursday. Don't forget to use your permalink. : )

Templeton

some recent events have led to a sad ending. today my boyfriend took my cat to the animal shelter. we can no longer keep him. we are not permitted to have pets where we live. i have had him for about 16 months and i love him so much. he is such a pretty cat. he is 1/2 siamese. and he has the cutest personality and is really calm.

if you live in utah and want a cute cute kitty - you can contact me and i can direct you to the shelter that he is located at. ♥

New Year's Eve Champagne Punch, Delicious and Easy to Make

If you've been reading BNOTP for a little while, you may remember a Champagne punch recipe I shared a few weeks ago. I'm posting it again today because it's also a great punch for New Year's Eve, too.

If you are making this for a small gathering of 2-4 people, one batch will do. If you're having a larger gathering, you'll want to make several batches because it's always a big hit and goes quickly. I went through 4 batches (with none left over) when I had a party with 25 in attendance. (So, that works out to be around 1 batch for every 6 folks in attendance.)


Champagne Holiday Punch

Ingredients:
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
3 cinnamon sticks
4 whole cloves
2 cups cranberry juice
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1 bottle champagne (Korbel Brut works great)
Small amount of Grand Marnier (or any orange liqueur you prefer)
Red sugar
Green sugar

In a saucepan, bring water, sugar, cinnamon sticks and cloves to boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Discard cinnamon and cloves.
Cool to room temperature and pour into a large pitcher.
Add cranberry juice and pineapple juice.
Chill in fridge until ready to serve.
At serving time, add 1 bottle of chilled champagne.

Right click on pic below to save it to your computer, then just print it off...much easier than having to write it all out.

Dip the Rims in Nonpariels for a Festive Occasion:

For a New Year's Eve party or a birthday party, I like to dip the rims of the glasses in nonpareils, instead of the the colored sugars I use at Christmastime.




When you get ready to serve this punch, just pour a little Grand Marnier or any orange liqueur into a shallow dish. Pour some nonpareils into a bowl.




Dip the rim of the champagne glass into the Grand Marnier, then into the bowl of nonpareils. Then pour the punch into the glass.

You can serve the punch from a punch bowl and ladle it into the glass, but since the opening of a champagne glass is so small this can be pretty messy with the punch ending up running down the sides of the glass. I found it's much easier to just pour it from a pitcher.




Or, if you have a beverage server similar to the one below, that will work well, too.




You may wish to print off some copies of this recipe because your guests are going to be asking for it. :) Or, just tell them it's an old family recipe and you've been sworn to secrecy. ;)



Your Reviews:

Some of you tried this recipe after I posted it before Christmas and here's what you said:

I made your champagne punch and served it before a luncheon I hosted yesterday! It was a true hit, and oh so very delicious! The addition of using the red and green sugars to rim the champagne glasses is a very nice detail! Thank you for sharing this with us! Loved it! It's a recipe that goes straight to my favorites file! ~At Home with a Country Lady


Made this Friday night for our annual neighborhood Holiday Party.
It got RAVE reviews and a request to make it again for Saturday's Cookie Swap. Thanks a million for an EASY, WONDERFUL treat!! ~Anonymous

Top 12 Outfits of 2010

I've grown more and more accustomed to taking outfit pictures every week, though I'm still not doing them daily. Hopefully that will change in 2011 [*resolution spoiler!*]. I skipped May completely thanks to the flood, and June and July were rough thanks to living alone in NYC and not having a photographer to snap them everyday. So rather than choosing one from each month, I chose 12 to show the dramatic [sense the sarcasm] evolution in my style. Truth be told, I'm still in a dress, flats and cardigan every day, but my tights have gotten bright, as has my hair. Oh and my sleeve is done! I guess that counts as evolution, right?!

Here we go! I'm ordering them from oldest to newest, so if you're a new reader, peep the archives! Also - you can click each picture to be taken to the original outfit post! [These are a bit biased as I tried to not include too many recent outfits, though I've had the most fun with them. I think I just love colored tights and pink hair! I can't help it!]

I really hope to expand on my style in 2011 and while I have no plans to include pants in any shape, form, or fashion, I do hope that my own handmade dresses will play a strong role! xo

An Interview with Bunny Williams

As we continue visiting all the fabulous Before and Afters posted for yesterday's Met Monday, I wanted to share a great post my friend, Vanna, alerted me to recently. Buzz, who blogs at, The Buzz on Antiques, interviewed one of my very favorite designers, Bunny Williams. It wasn't your typical interview...far from it. Buzz, besides being amazingly knowledgeable about antiques, has a fun sense of humor, so you can just imagine some of the questions he chose to ask.

Reading the interview, I discovered Bunny is down to earth, quick with a comeback and very good natured. She answered all Buzz's questions and some were a bit provoking, to say the least. It's an entertaining interview and Bunny was every bit as awesome as I already thought she was. Her answers were just what I would have expected, having read her wonderful book, An Affair with a House. The interview makes you love Bunny Williams and her decorating/design style even more.

I loved her thoughts about how we should just gradually "refresh" our home over the years as our taste in furnishings and decorating change/evolve. I think that's what most of us do anyway so it's nice to hear a highly respected decorator recommend it...as opposed to redoing the whole house periodically. Let me know what you think once you have read the interview. It really is a fun and interesting interview...certainly not like any I have ever read before.

Bunny has a new book out called, Bunny Williams' Scrapbook for Living.


Wonder how long I can hold out before I cave and order it? After perusing it at Amazon, I don't think it will be long.


Shopping at A Classy Flea: A Vintage Kelvinator:

On a totally unrelated note, I have to share some pics of a stove I came across recently while on a shopping trip to A Classy Flea. Check this bad boy out:

Have you ever heard of a Kelvinator?




Apparently this one dates back to the 1940's...and how about that color? Aqua is all the rage now...it seems like everyone is decorating with this color these days. Okay, maybe not in appliances, but it is still kind of cool.




See that lid? Can you guess what it is?




This stove has a built-in soup tureen! How cool is that?! Have you ever seen a stove with its own soup tureen? Looks like it was put to good use, too. Update: Several folks have left comments here and on Facebook saying this was also called a deep well cooker. Apparently, you could even fry in it. That was probably safer than frying up on top of the stove and less hot grease splatters, too.




And here are the cockpit dials if you choose to pilot this machine...



This must be a timer. Wonder if it automatically turns the oven off once the time is up? Or, perhaps it operates the soup tureen since it's right above the tureen. Ummm, now where did I put that instruction manual???




So, how much do you think this stove would cost today? I was STUNNED when I found out how much vintage stoves are going for online! Let's just say, the ones I found online should come with an engine, tires and a steering wheel...and you should be able to drive it to the grocery store and start cooking your meal on the way back home! Seriously! We're talking in the $7,000-$21,000 range (pun intended) for some vintage stoves! Wow!



Here's what it's going for at A Classy Flea...if it's still there. Not bad compared to what I found online.



Yay, for A Classy Flea! Oh, I have A Classy Flea shopping trip to share with you sometime soon. It's time we did a little antiquing/thrifting trip, isn't it? :)


Little Reminder...Blogging Bloopers Party:
This Saturday, January 1st, 2011, BNOTP will be hosting the first ever "Blogging Bloopers" Party and you'll get to see some of the bloopers I've made (and sometimes hid) during 2010. Last January, I created THIS post showing some of my Blogging Bloopers from 2009. I asked if you guys had some to share...and the comments left on that post were really funny! :)

Here's a little party button I created in case you would like a reminder for your sidebar. Hope you'll come join in the fun this Saturday!



<center><a href="http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjQpcH8WOkENWOhbKvCxZKk1B_IFNwiw8If5JkZSFXrjh25TEOkH_TaU9B3YcoX-WjynbPS9PcaBcLY9yB1FBMegLQ6fzpn_1bpF0G_YOWzot2hNhwJLaZbqsrVdh9mG6fQ9RBTlFbPhHH/s400/109TTAntcameinonflowers-1+%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></center>

Can't wait to hear what you thought about the Bunny Williams interview!