Tablescapes - Thanksgiving

They say you eat with your eyes as much as your stomach. That's why I always like to make any dinner table special. Have you ever wished you could make some of the beautiful "tablescapes" that you see on line? Whether it's for a Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas brunch or even a wedding. They look daunting, I know. And some can be very expensive. But trust me, it can be easy, and it can be inexpensive.

This picture is of this year's Thanksgiving table. Most of the decor items have been purchased either from the dollar store or Winners/Homesense/Marshals. And I basically collect items and add or take away each year to make it different.

To describe this table, I used copper coloured chargers. I had Orange napkins and black napkins that I folded into turkey shapes. I used an old door wreath as the base of the table centre with a small cake plate to elevate the ceramic pumpkin.

All the leaves and the two sparkly pumpkins were from the dollar store, as well as the candle holders and place cards. The burlap cutlery holders were just pieces of burlap wrapped around to which I glued fake acorns (from the dollar store).


So next question is where do you begin?  Well first think of your theme. Since this is Thanksgiving, you have a lot to choose from. You can just start with a colour scheme. Do you want mostly orange? Do you want golds or bronzes? Or all of the above.

Then pick what aspect of Thanksgiving you like. You can focus on the turkey. Or the pumpkins or the traditional cornucopia or even just the fall flowers. I don't normally include turkeys in my themes, but I found a great Youtube video, showing how to make these turkey napkins, so I made those.

If you have NOTHING in your house already that you can create a table, it can take a while to build up to it. However, last year my neighbour gave me $30 to go out and buy things for her table and it turned out quite nice. Here's THAT picture. Simple but festive.

So this is how you do it:

#1 - buy some silk fall leaves - these are so inexpensive, and you can hide a multitude of sins with a bunch of leaves.

#2 - use your own dishes - no need to buy special fall plates

#3 - invest in some cloth napkins - I bought these orange ones last year, but they will last for many years. If you don't want to get VERY fall looking ones, buy cream or tan. They can be used with other tables and other seasons. You can use paper, as my friend did in the picture above, but you can be more creative with cloth ones.

#4 - make sure you can remove large items from the table JUST before you are about to eat. It was easy to pick up the wreath, cake plate and pumpkin from the middle to make room for our dinner.

#5 - keep your eye out for simple things that you can use to build on. For example the burlap acorn cutlery rings. The burlap was on a roll, so I still have a ton left, and the acorns were in a bag.

#6 - don't be afraid to try something and if it doesn't look good, rearrange it.

All your guests will appreciate the extra time and effort you took to make the table look special. And even if your food sucks, they will remember how nice the table looked.

This picture is from last year's Thanksgiving table. See some of the same items from this year? But it still looked different.

Coming up next....how to convert you Thanksgiving table to a Halloween table. (And visa versa for our American friends.)