entertaining / bright and cheery springtime tablesetting

i love this tablesetting that bobette put together. it is possibly the most colorful and cheery table i have ever seen. she start with a runner made of navy blue ikat napkins from homegoods. she layered chartreuse runners lengthwise across the table, creating each 'placemat' (from ikea). the centerpiece is a wooden box that was made for a wedding in our backyard, filled with flowers cut from our garden. she started each place setting with a basic white square plate (from ikea). she then added our thrift store clear glass gold rimmed plates, and a colorful blue salad plate on top of that. she added our gold geometric soup/pasta bowls (from homegoods). we got those bright orange napkins on super sale at world market (they seriously have the best selection of basic napkins). she tied them into a faux bow tie with a pink ribbon. for glassware she used our tall glasses and our vintage blue dessert dishes, on top of our favorite pink and orange coasters.

entertaining / easy tablesetting for a crowd

though we love creating elaborate tablesettings (see here, here and here), often we don't eat at perfectly set tables like that. also, we usually have way more people than our dining room table can handle- we have lots of family and friends with big families. most of the time our tables look something like this when we have guests over. we use our big kitchen table that seats twelve, and keep our normal centerpiece on the table which is low enough to talk over, and small enough to fit the food on the table (we are all about family style).

for this table we used our ikea runners (we got our on sale for $1.99 each). we have 8 of them so we put two across four times. down the center we have a chevron table cloth that was made for my cousin's wedding. we used basic white square plates and my favorite little grey plates. instead of doing cloth napkins we used paper ones (also from ikea!). we brought in my world market dining room chairs and combined them with my mom's wood chairs.

since we are already sharing easy tablesetting, why not share one of the easiest and most delicious appetizers that we frequently serve.

cheater bruschetta:

this appetizer is super easy to throw together last second before your guests come over- plus it has almost all of my favorite foods. all you do is toast some bread (we usually use the rosemary bread from costco). spread some pesto on top, then placed sliced fresh mozzarella (which we also get from costco) and tomatoes. top with freshly shredded parmesean, salt and pepper. then let guests pour balsamic vinegar over their individual servings- if your pour it for everyone they get a little soggy. eat up!

entertaining / syd's bon voyage party

sorry for the radio silence the past few days! i have been way too distracted helping syd get ready from her mission (and exhausted at the end of every day). we finally sent her off today! she will be serving a mission in costa rica for the next year and a half. this has been the first missionary our family has sent off and i'd say we are doing pretty well so far. we are so excited to hear all about her experiences in costa rica.

before she left we threw her a little going away party. like most parties that bobette and i throw, we ended up doing everything last minute and throwing it together really quickly (exhibits a and b). we decided to go with a bon voyage/map/globe theme (although syd wouldn't let us write bon voyage because she won't be speaking french but spanish). we borrowed tons of globes and maps from our friends.

for the entry we put up some bunting and made a little (hand-drawn) adios sign. this was my first time ever using a sewing machine, and let me tell you, i am terrible at it. we had a bunch of strings of cut papers from this wedding, but i made a few that had map paper in them to go with everything else. we threw a couple of globes on the table and that amazing succulent vase. we added some baskets underneath for people's rainy shoes and umbrellas. you'll get details on our new favorite light later!

we put our dessert table in the dining room. we moved the dining room table against the hutch and put a vintage school map up as the backdrop. we used the leaf from the table as a pedestal for the globes we put on the table. we put a gray tray with the dessert napkins and plates, and had our emerald striped ikea tablecloth down. we used various white platters for serving the dessert.

this is our 'sydney shrine'. we got a large poster of her made at staples (the engineer prints are huge and only $3- we are kind of obsessed with them right now). we layered a world map, a map of california, and a map of costa rica. i got those ranunculus at the farmers market this weekend and have been adoring them ever since. i am a little bit too obsessed.

at the party we had to serve the classic carpenter sliders (that we served at my wedding and which my dad is famous for). we debated on how to present them without just having a pile of burgers and some disgusting toppings. we decided to put the burgers on their buns and have those on large platters. we still wanted everyone to make their dream slider, so we put toppings in little ramekins with little spoons. we had a platter of sliders and their toppings on each side of the table for crowd control (spreading the wealth is always a good idea). above the table we hung more shapes streamers and bunting. we had a giant globe as the centerpiece. oh and that tablecloth is actually my old shower curtain. it was 72x72 and fit perfectly on our square table- don't be afraid to use literally any linen that you have. 

this was such a fun and easy party to throw, and we were so happy to celebrate syd with all of the people we love!

entertaining / family first

somehow, my mom gets involved with almost every church event in temecula. maybe that is exaggerating a bit, but it really feels like it. it's her own fault too. if she weren't so multi-talented she would be used much less. she started out making dinners for the masses, but now has gotten in to the decorating side of things.

for those of you who are lds, you know how hard it is to hide the 'cultural hall' with cute decorations. there is lots of space that needs to be filled, high ceilings that need to be dealt with, ugly walls and dividers and ugly chairs and tables. this is how we did it. 

for the entry we hung some super cute curtains as a back drop (to hide a niche in the wall). we layered in a trellis and hung a huge gold sunburst mirror from it. we used one of the basic tables with a black and white striped table cloth. we brought in trees from ace hardware to use throughout the event and used a blossoming tree here. we had magnolia and gilded magnolia branches in jars, and made a sign using the back of a sunburst decoration. (this was definitely our favorite part of the event)

this is the view from the entry facing forward. we made the tables in to an 'x' formation (we had nine total). we strung lights across the top (which would have looked tons better had they been globe lights). there were two large bulletin board-y spaces we have to deal with. we used 99 cent black table cloths and cheap gold ribbon to frame them. then we printed engineer size family pictures (because the event was about families). we backed them with wrapping paper. (i don't have a great picture of these but you can see them on the back wall). we put our big white frame in front of the piano and filled it with gold fringe.

for the tables we rented black table cloths, gold rimmed plates, and raspberry colors napkins. we used our gold chargers (seen here) and wood boxes (seen here). we bought emerald green runners from ikea and added in our cute west elm gold napkins. we filled the boxes with raspberry colored stock and made table numbers using arrows and coasters. we made bow-tie napkins using black patterned papers. on the chairs we tied gold sprayed magnolia leaves with green tulle and a little black and white striped ribbon. we also created a cute sitting area with furniture from my mom's house (very bottom picture).

tablesetting / a bohemian valentine's

instead of going with traditional red and pink decor for valentine's day, why not switch to some more fun, still girly, and less expected colors? we loved the combination of purple and coral, along with a little bit of gold and green (because we can't do anything without gold or green). for this tablescape we were really excited to use our new gold rimmed plates that we found at goodwill. it was like $10 for a set of six salad and full sized plates. i was trying so hard to move away from thrift store shopping (because i am sick of hand-me-downs and owning things that i like, but don't love), but sometimes it's just too legit to quit. oh and those gold rimmed glasses that seem to match perfectly, they came from the dollar store. oh, and our savings on this table don't stop there. we got the napkins and runner on super clearance at world market. it was like $4 for all the napkins and about the same for the runner. we also recently got those black and gold rimmed plates on clearance at target ($1 each). the only other things that are new are the little purple vases (about $1 from ikea). we had the succulents and the centerpiece items already. i dug out my gold west elm flatware so that we can finally start having cute silverware to include in these posts!

what are your valentine's traditions? we try to do a fancy dinner in the dining room every year, and usually that means my dad grills us some steaks. i'm hoping we can pull it off this year, luckily we already have the table set!