Sunday, November 20, 2011

Dare to ... Entertain!

It's Week 2 of Kim's Dare to DIY!!  


I'm so excited that I will actually be "entertaining" this year!  Holidays are often a bit of a stress, since my family is in Tennessee, and Tony's are here in Georgia.  There are always schedules to align and travelling to do.  Always worth it, of course, but still.  However, this year, my parents and Grammy are coming down to stay for Thanksgiving!  So we will have both sets of parents (and Gram!) here with us.  I love playing hostess, probably because I never do it.


Anyway, it's a stretch to fit this many people in our little house, but it shall be done.  I wanted to decorate in a natural, neutral kind of way.  This is the table I came up with this year for $0.




The DIY'ness of this table comes into play with the placemats and the leaves.  I didn't have any appropriate placemats for my fall table, so I took a large piece of burlap I had lying around and cut it into squares.  I fringed the ends by pulling out the threads.  Easy peasy.




For the leaves, I copied an idea I saw on Pinterest, by Mod Podging real leaves.  I simply plucked them, Podged them, and then stuck them under the glass plates I had.  The leaves turn out really shiny and waxy, making them durable enough for this.  I wish I had thought to do this sooner, before all of the really brightly-colored leaves were gone...



The still-living-non-rotting pumpkins were a donation from my mother-in-law, and I just grabbed some grosgrain ribbon to tie up the napkins I had.  The little cups are for eggnog, of course.  It's a Thanksgiving tradition in my family - no one is allowed to sample eggnog of any sort until we have it on Thanksgiving.  To me, nothing signifies the start of the holiday season better than this!



Not bad for free!






Visit Newlywoodwards and see all of this week's submissions :)

Dare to DIY

17 comments:

  1. Hi, found your link via Dare to DIY. I went with burlap placemats too - although yours like much more uniform in size than mine.

    I love the mod podged leaf too!

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  2. I love the leaves under the glass plate - that is such a fun and simple idea. Never would have thought of it. At first I thought they were actually leaf plates. Also, big fan of the burlap placemats. Perfect for any time of the year. The fringed edges are too perfect.

    Thanks for linking up to Dare to DIY. I so appreciate it.

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  3. Gorgeous table! I love the leaves and the burlap placemats. It's perfect!

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  4. The leaf idea is genius! Love it! Following you from the Dare to DIY Party!

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  5. I'm visiting from Kim's Dare to DIY Party. I love the leaves under your glass plates - what a great idea! Your table looks very inviting!

    Jenn

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  6. Cute! I like how you used the leaves under the glass plate =)
    Have a lovely time hosting!!
    I am visiting from NewlyWoodwards...

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  7. I love it!! This is such a great idea- the leaves look great. I love that it's fall themed without being too bright, I think the muted colors look really sophisticated :)

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  8. The leaves on the plates are brilliant! Will you leave them on or do you think you can remove them after Thanksgiving?

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  9. Ok I LOVE the leaves and like you I wish I saw this project sooner. I live in Missouri and 98% of our leaves have fallen, I'm totally saving this for next year though!

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  10. The leave look incredible! It took me a minute to understand that they were under your plate. I'm a little slow!

    Have fun hosting Thanksgiving. We are hosting too--it is so much fun!

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  11. I am so doing that with the leaves! I love your neutral look.

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  12. Claire,

    This looks great!! I especially like the pumpkins in the middle of the table! The leaves look great!

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  13. It looks lovely!!! Fabulous idea with the leaves!! :)

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  14. Love the leaves! I've been a terrible commentor lately, but I'm reading and youre fabulous :)

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  15. I also thought you had awesome shiny leaf plates but oh no, Claire got all DIY up in here!! And I totes prefer the uniform brown ones, I think they fit in quite nicely with your neutch tablescape.

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  16. Claire. I was so DONE with tg (I know it sounds hoooorible & totally scroogy), but now [finally] digging into my reader and seeing this, makes me actually look forward to the holiday again... to doing it *inexpensively, & to starting some new traditions (like the eggnog one, in which I LOVE... telling Jacob about it right after I comment!).

    ...& the burlap placemats- GENIUS!! (saving this post for next year!!)

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