Happy Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving and Christmas trees have been up since right around Halloween.
I know weird, I always put my trees up early because I just love them.
They stayed like this for awhile just with lights in their urns.

The Thanksgiving tree is decorated with elements from nature.

It's in the man cave.



I used owls, birds, feathers, white pumpkins, and mushrooms.

It coordinates nicely with the dark green velvet Ikea drapes.

A couple of years ago I started a tradition in our home of a Gratitude Tree.
 I made gratitude cards and had any and everyone that comes to my house write what they are thankful for on the back of the card.

Then we hang them on the Thanksgiving tree.  

We read all of them during the Thanksgiving meal.

Thanksgiving 2012

I have so much to be thankful for.

We aren't hosting Thanksgiving this year, my mom is.  

I would love to hear about your Thanksgiving traditions.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Holiday!

Thanks for checking it out.

The Race, Owl Napkin Rings, Cookies, and the Gratitude Card Consensus!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.

We started the festivities with a family run in the morning.  Sorry I forgot the camera for the big race.  My husband and my nephew had a one mile challenge race while the rest of us cheered them on and jogged the mile.  My husband was quite happy he can still out run a 13 year old. 

We will be doing this again next year, it was so fun!

We came home famished after our workout and started the feasting. 

Hey, we ran a whole mile, we deserved to indulge!

Here is the kid's table and a quick little dollar store napkin ring project.

I showed you the adult table in the last post.

I made these owl napkin rings for the kid's table.

I found the owl rings and the feather hair clips at the dollar store.

 

I divided these sparkly wired leaves that came clustered on a stem and hot glued the ends of each leaf together to form a circle.  This formed the base of my napkin ring.  You can see one of the base rings in this picture laying on the newspaper.

I removed the finger ring from the backs of the owls and feathers.  I added a little more hot glue and attached both to my leaf circle to complete the napkin ring.

I put the extras that weren't holding napkins around the candlesticks and votives.

I added a few spray painted white and gold pumpkins, some gold twig place mats, and red cranberry red chargers to complete the look.  The red bubble glasses belonged to my Grandmother.  We use them everyday.

As the turkey was cooking, the kids decorated cookies while the rest of the family drank champagne and watched football.

Casey

No time for smiling mom, I'm in the cookie zone.

These girls take their cookie decorating seriously.

My cousin Margaret (on the right hand side of this photo) made all the cookies and the Royal Icing for the decorating.  She uses a Martha Stewart recipe and these cookies are the best looking and tasting sugar cookies I have ever experienced.  She has brought them for the last two years of Thanksgiving and I hope she brings them again next year too!

These are her two girls

Darby and McKenna.

My youngest daughter Cami is on the right.

The dogs took care of any leftovers on the floor. 

My parent's dog Gigi came over to help Piper out with the clean up.

"Did you see that?  I called it first."

  

"Please give us turkey because we are cute."

The consensus on the Gratitude Cards is that Family is the Most Important thing that people are Thankful for.

Followed by their

friends, health, and their dogs.

Funny how no one talked about their car, computer, clothes, our any other material things?

It's the simple things that are the most important to all of us. 

I hope you and your family had an amazing Thanksgiving Day together!

Thanks for checking it out.

Thanksgiving Table

One table down, one kid's table to go.

I showed you in an earlier post how I made these velvet pumpkins for this year's table.
Blue is on my mind.

Here is last year's table,

purple, cranberry, and a mix of gold and silver.

For the center piece I added a golden magnolia acorn spray that I've had for years to the velvet pumpkins. I placed the center pumpkin on a small urn.

The smaller velvet pumpkins on each plate will hold the place cards (which I still need to make.)
I shouldn't have played volleyball at the beach yesterday.  I still have a lot to get done to get ready for our guests.  The decorating is the fun part.  I left all my house cleaning for last, I hate cleaning! 
I know I probably did the decorating/cleaning order backwards.

I used my wedding china, crystal, and gold chargers. 

The only thing purchase new for this year's table are these pale gray/blue tablecloths from Marshall's.  They are a great neutral color that I will be able to use over and over again for other events.  I paired them with my leopard print table runners.  The animal print helps warm up the coolness of the gray.  Without them everything was looking too pastel for Fall.

The brass candlesticks were borrowed from my mom. 
They belonged to my Great Grandmother.

For the center piece I elevated a round silver platter on meatloaf pans and skirted it with a feather boa so you can't see the pans.  On top of the platter I layered left over blue velvet fabric, velvet pumpkins, white ostrich feathers, gold and silver leaves and twigs, and faux white pumpkins to the ends of the center piece.  My original pedestal that I showed my velvet pumpkins on was too tall to be practical for this tablescape.  Many of the the center pieces I see in pictures, while beautiful, are either to tall or not tall enough for a dining table.  The meatloaf pans give just enough height without creating a "pumpkin wall."  I always do a center piece test run and sit down at the table to see if it's the right height for eating. 

I set the tables up inside our living room/office. 

Our formal dining room is outside.

It's supposed to rain here on Thursday.

If it rains my husband will be frying the turkey outside under the gazebo.  It's metal, so no fire hazard.  I'll just need to move the table and take down the chandelier so he doesn't bang his head on it.

This is our formal dining room/turkey frying when it rains room.

I'm excited to eat fried turkey and decorate Christmas cookies.
Decorating Christmas cookies on Thanksgiving with the kids is something I started with them when they were little.  The adults get into the decorating action too.

I still need to set the kids table.  I'll show you that one in a later post.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful day.

I'm so thankful for your visit.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm linking this to Censational Girls HomeGoods Tablescape Party.

Velvet Pumpkins and a Thanksgiving Tablescape Preview

We're hosting Thanksgiving again this year and I'm so excited! 

I love entertaining.

I posted earlier about my blue pumpkins and I showed you how I made these. 

I've been drooling over these velvet pumpkins .  The originals are pricey, 3 for $84. 
 I tucked this picture away with plans on making some at a later date.

Then I found this great tutorial at the Lemonista and decided to make some for my
Thanksgiving table.

Mine are just a little different.  I couldn't find enough real pumpkin stems so I made my own out of clay.  I can't find my stem pictures, but it's very simple.  I shaped the stems out of air dry Crayola clay and spray painted the stems gold.  I notched all the tops of my stems to hold place cards.

 Another change I made was to add a couple stitches from the center top of my pumpkins through the center of the bottom.  I like a flatter squished down pumpkin. 

 Just hot glue the clay stems on and that's it.

The small pumpkins will be used on my Thanksgiving table to hold place cards for each guest. 
The extras will be used for the center piece.

I made 18 pumpkins for around $25. 

If I had purchased these that would have cost me around $500. 

I mixed in some real pumpkin stems and they received the same coat of spray paint.

I'll mix in some silver and gold foliage for some pumpkin glam.  I'm not sure if we will be eating inside or out this year? 
We'll have to see if the weather cooperates.

Are you hosting Thanksgiving? 

Are you whipping up any DIY creations for your tablescape this year?

I would love to see them!

Thanks for checking it out.

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