Challenge: to eat more during Thanksgiving week than my stretchy maternity pants can handle. 

Prize: Sharing the aftermath with others. 

Just thought I would share that tidbit of info with you.

Now let’s move on toward something a little more seasonal.  First – check out our new Thanksgiving header:

Snazzy.

Seriously, if I wasn’t already knocked up – that fine Pilgrim’s breeches would have a brass-buckle-lovin-garter-chasing-Native-American on it’s hands.  And Thanksgiving just got a whole new meaning.  Swoon 🙂

Now that my word picture brought you all into the holiday spirit – let me share with you how we decorated our Thanksgiving table.  Sadly it won’t be getting any turkey-action (keep it clean gals) this coming week.  But that is no reason to leave it high and dry.  No.  It needed to be Thanksgiving-inized!  And I gobbled up the chance to change it into something a little more festive at a low budget (freecoughfree).  So without further hesitation (or any more Pilgrim jokes) here is our festive Thanksgiving tablescape:

It all began with a bit of festive fabric that I found in the bottom of my linen trunk.  And that fabric brought me back a few years. 

Flashing back to October of 2007 brought memories of the last time I felt this fabric.  It was used at the bridal tea that I hosted for all the important ladies in my wedding party.   

My dear Grandma was there, the fireplace (and the rest of the house) wasn’t renovated yet, and the festive fabric was folded into a large square for the center of our ‘Seats-14’ bridal tea table.

I decided that the best way to up-cycle the orange, red, and green cotton fabric was to sew it into a runner that I could use on the table or on the buffet.

I whipped out the runner in a jiffy.  (A jiffy to me is seventeen hours of rereading my sewing machine manual & learning how to turn on our iron.)

Anyhoo.  If you look very closely at the runner, you can see that it features some brown pine cones…which gets my brain going for a more rustic textural feel.  But then it also has flowers – lilys, mums, and roses.  So I decided that the rest of our table should reflect that same Girl-meets-Woods attitude. 

Both place settings were started with a gold charger – which instantly added a little glitz.  But the shine was a little too much and needed to be tempered.  Enter woven charger.  Yes, I buck tradition.  I used two chargers.  And I would do it again.  in. a. grateful. dead. heartbeat.  (Gold Charger = GIRL; Woven Charger = WOODS)

On top of the chargers, I placed a simple dinner plate (the pattern is Lenox Federal Platinum) and a warm orange linen napkin.  Then comes the finishing touch.  A yellow glass candle holder.  Or it could be an ashtray.  I don’t know.  I got it at a yard sale….my mother’s yard sale to be exact…so it was free too.  And it was the perfect size to add a little more sparkle.  But everyone knows that there is such a thing as too much sparkle (just ask David Bowie).  In order to tone down the Edward-in-the-daylight-gleam, I whipped out some rustic vase filler.  I love the contrast of the shiny glass flower dish and the dark shells & woven yumminess of the vase filler.  (Yellow Dish = GIRL; Acorn Vase Filler = WOODS)

Working on the tablescape centerpiece was really easy & fun with my new GIRL meets WOODS concept.   It really helps me to have a theme.  Even if it is only in my head and completely ridiculous.

A brown leathery tray was ‘borrowed’ from our bedroom and I snatched a set of three candle holders from our guest room.  The tray grounds the centerpiece – giving it depth and a little texture. 

A bouquet of flowers would have been perfectly appropriate – but I didn’t want to spend any money so fresh flowers were out.  I ended up with a bouquet of woven spheres on sticks (they were left over from our wedding decor aka free).  The ‘faux-balls’ (my boyfriend’s endearing term for them) created an interesting and creative solution.   Girl meets wood & falls in love 🙂

Unfortunately, I didn’t have three matching votives in white (my box of candles was stashed temporarily) and so I had to access even more creative juices in order to figure out what to do with the candle holders.  Peanuts to the rescue.  That’s right – one of my favorite finger-lickin-salty-snacks were perfect to add a little more texture and acts as a perfect appetizer for passerbyers.  Girl meets Woods and falls in love and gets married.

I finished off the centerpiece with a couple small pumpkins & one large one (leftover from Halloween).  The big one conveniently was the exact size I would choose for the metal footed bowl.  It added some elevation to the arrangement and gave it a nice pop of orange.  A simple little touch that anyone can do is to tag your ‘kin.  I did it with a couple of Pottery Barn writable bronze name tags that I tied to the stem of the pumpkin.  A short & sweet message of “GIVE THANKS” is always something people (read:I) need to remember this time of year.

Girl just had Wood’s baby.

And it wouldn’t be exactly fair to spruce up the dining room table without adding a little ooomph to the buffet, now would it?!  So I went to work creating a simple and easy arrangement on the buffet too.   

I started off with a simple idea of a single arrangement of dried hydrangeas.  These were hanging onto the limelight bushes in our front yard.  All I had to do was clip & stick.  Wahla!  I immediately had a dried arrangement with texture and lovely shades of brown.

Then I thought about giving the area some height.  Everybody likes a tall skinny friend to stand next to them when you are dried out and feeling crumbly, right?  So I mimicked the good-ole water-reed in a glass jar idea that I have going on in our guest bathroom.   

Then I placed some wine bottles, a few glasses, and some napkins.  But the whole display didn’t feel complete.  And then it struck me – I could hang the ribbon plate from the mirror with a message!   Not only did it wish our guests to have a Happy Thanksgiving but the weight of the plate visually balances out the hydrangeas on the other side. 

And now we have a complete & festive dining room fit for a king…or a turkey (if only I knew how to make one!).  Oh well, so that’s it.  One fun & free dining room decor update fit for the Thanksgiving holiday.  Now onto the fun part….YOU.

Do you decorate for Thanksgiving even if you aren’t hosting?  Are you an upcycler when it comes to fabrics or past decor favorites?  Any wedding decor users out there?  Anyone like the faux-balls?  How about them peanuts?  Any double chargers out there?  Anyone out there at all?

Anyone?

HELLLLO!

Is anyone still there? 

If you can hear me Lassie – go get grandpa! 

And then tell me all about your Thanksgiving decor!  Link if you can!  And avoid the strange girl in the woods – I hear she is having a barky-baby 🙂 

(sorry folks – my uterus is making me cheesier by the second.)