I know so many of you will be spending Valentine's Day at home this year. We have always preferred to have a nice dinner at home and skip the crowds. It's also an excuse to buy yourself flowers for the table instead of getting the dreaded wildflower bouquet. My husband wouldn't know a peony if it him on the head! I can't even get him to understand that they aren't called panties when he pronounces them. I'll just save him that embarrassing trip to the store and pick them up my self. He did buy me tulips for our first Valentine's Day together 24 years ago. Unfortunately, they were potted ones from the garden department.
Anyway, this year it's all about the pink! Pink flowers, pink chargers, pink candles and pink champagne of course.
I say early fall because there is a huge difference in the way I decorate my table between the beginning of fall compared to Thanksgiving. It's hard to break out the dark autumn colors when the temperatures are still in the 90s! I do love the white pumpkins and greenery too. The urn was a recent Homegoods find, and I immediately knew it would be a great dining room centerpiece. I also bought these beautiful etched wineglasses I've been eyeing for months. They are big enough they can also be used for water goblets on Thanksgiving. Everything else were items I already had on hand with the exception of the roses and pumpkins I picked up at the grocery store. The eucalyptus is real, but it is dried so I can use it for years to come. I bought mine at Hobby Lobby for $10. It's such a great deal!
A local talk show called Houston Life contacted me recently to share two of my Easter tablescapes on live TV. Of course, I said yes! I had less than a week to prepare so I had to decide on an adult table and a kids table theme, and then shop for both in just a few days. It was absolutely chaotic, especially since I was working with clients at the same time!
Instead of being at the mercy of what the stores had left I decided to work with what I had on hand for the adult table, which meant my china and chinoiserie vases. I decided to look for a spring color to supplement the blue and white. Thankfully, everything goes with blue and white! I found the most beautiful blush chargers at Pottery Barn and went from there. I added napkins with a bit of pink, and then I repeated the color with macaroons, bejeweled eggs and rose wine because that's an inexpensive way to repeat a color. I eventually added a third color by with the addition of a green and white trellis runner and cabbage leaf bowls.
Here are impromptu shots over the weekend as I was putting it all together.
The second table was a kids table. I had nothing on hand for that one! I decided to let my imagination run with that one instead of pulling every kitschy kids item in a big chain store. Every viewer can do that with a few hundred dollars. That's not very inspiring since most of us aren't going to spend that kind of money, and the retail stores already have those displays set up. I decided on a vegetable patch theme with real produce. The huge leaves of mustard greens make a great table runner by the way! I piled on purple leaves, radishes and carrots. Then I went shopping for garden related items. I was thinking about anything galvanized, watering cans, and shovels. Of course there had to be a bunny in there too! I made this functional by adding a dessert tray and a kids craft area.
I love the ball glass to hold pencils and the basket to hold the kids craft. I also found a watering can and added a sunflower arrangement.
The kids dessert tray was decorated with moss and faux Easter eggs. It was so hard to keep the kids from eating all of this! I couldn't believe my luck when I found the cabbage placemat, vegetable salad plates and garden themed napkins at Pier 1.
Here it is all set up before the show!
It was a little nerve wracking because I was supposed to have two tables, but we ended up having to combine everything on one table. I wasn't sure if it would all fit! I even considered editing down the items or suggesting to cut the kids table, but the producer had already mentioned the decor in a teaser. Thankfully, I was able to get everything on there. All of that rushing ended up being a good thing in the end because I never had enough time to work myself up into being nervous in front of the camera. I had a wonderful host too that prompted me throughout the entire segment.
Click on the picture below for a link if you'd like to watch!
