Thinking Pink...

I've been playing with colors lately, trying to come up with something nontraditional for a Valentines tablescape. Today's effort includes a Wilendur tablecloth and a mix of contemporary and vintage Fiesta.

Dreary Outside... Cheery Within!

Here's my first solo offering for Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps On The Porch!

The weather here in Virginia is pretty nasty today... Wintry mix earlier today put down a nice slushy underlayer outdoors, with a layer of big fluffy snowflakes on top. Everything outside was gray, gray, and more GRAY.

Inside though is a little different story. I chose a Waterlily and pond vintage tablecloth in bright primary colors, added vintage and contemporary Fiesta and floral decalled Newell dinnerware (also by Homer Laughlin, way back in 1908!). The flatware is Masquerade, made to coordinate with Fiesta. Some yellow Alstromeria from my local grocery store added a splash of sunshine to the mix. Thanks so much for stopping in!

Learning as I go...

My tablescape ladies have a lot of patience, especially Candy of The Little Round Table.
She's answered innumerable questions about "how to" do things on the blog. I'm taking tiny little steps, and I'm enjoying the process as much as the result. Today's lesson is on linking, and I'll admit that seeing my little link actually behave and do what it was supposed to was almost as thrilling as the first time I managed to post a picture on the blog all by myself!

Thank you, Candy!

Winter Colors

Usually I associate cool colors with this time of year... Whites, grays, and icy blues. Last week, the sun was rising as I left work, and the intense colors were worth the stops to take pictures on the ride home. Cerise, purples, soft reds and blues surely painted the mountains and skies beautifully...no photo editing necessary!

Seeing Spots

Today is Friday to most people but it is my Monday, so it's usually filled with activities geared toward working the next few nights... doing laundry, making sure the car has gas, and planning what I'm going to eat over the next few days so that I don't actually have to do any cooking.

I got a little distracted this morning when I saw a post over on CMG, Collectible Medium Green, a message board for Homer Laughlin collectors... my very talented friend, David had posted some gorgeous pictures showing off his polka dotted Fiesta in use, and asked other folks to show their dots. Hm.... laundry.... or playing with dishes??? Good thing I have more than 3 sets of scrubs because dishes win that battle EVERY time.

I only have a few pieces of polka dot Fiesta, so I knew I'd have to mix it up with other things... The polka dot pieces are scarlet and white, and while those would be the most obvious colors to mix with, I wanted something a little different....

Here's what I came up with:



Here's just the place setting, layered Polka Dots mixed with vintage Forest and vintage Yellow. The flatware is contemporary Fiesta by Cambridge in Chocolate.




So much for laundry!

Tablescapes and Dish-asters

Lots of excitement here in the Blue Ridge of late. I've had to pack up a big bunch of my dishes and emptied my pantry and hall shelves in order to start a Project. You know... those things that are only supposed to take three days, and end up taking three weeks.

This Project was a major one: putting in a cabinet in the dining room to hold a Whole LOT of dishes. Yes, I did already have two cabinets in there, but when my Mom came to me and said she knew just what she wanted to give me for Christmas and would I mind if she had a new cabinet put in... well, I didn't actually jump for joy, but i also didn't let any grass grow before voicing immediate agreement! And well, when a couple of friends from Up North mentioned that they wanted to take the train and come down to visit, I just warned them that the house would be in total chaos, but sure, come on down!

Originally, my Project was supposed to be finished up three days before M and DDCG got here, so I was thinking they might not mind helping me put away some of the Dish-tastrophe. They collect Fiesta, just like me, so they'd probably have all kinds of great ideas about how to get things sorted out... and I'm sure they would have, IF we'd gotten to that point. But, since the weather had been crummy, things got a bit behind and instead of staying home and putting away dishes, we had to go ANTIQUING instead.

I'm pretty sure they were crushed to have to see sights, and look for dish treasures instead of washing and putting away my dishes, but they somehow managed to hide the disappointment. We ended up having quite the house party when another Dish Friend came up from North Carolina. The only down side was that I wasn't able to cook here at home. (Ok, maybe that's not all bad... and they didn't seem to mind.) I had to work on planning out a tablescape for a little shared venture with my Tablescape Ladies, so the Dish folks jumped right in and helped me figure out what to use for my part of the quad-tablescape.

Here's what we came up with:



and a little close up of the centerpiece (and yes, that's a miniature of King Triton's castle from The Little Mermaid).


We each have a different colorway in this cloth, so it seemed like fun to each set a table using our cloth. Candy and Daphne hostessed the event, which published today: