• About GH&P
  • Contact Us

Garden, Home & Party

~ My love of gardening, making home comfortable and entertaining friends and family.

Garden, Home & Party

Tag Archives: tablesettings

Table settings with a touch of whimsy

07 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by Karen B. in Dining Room, Entertaining, House and Home, Party Planning, Trends

≈ 37 Comments

Tags

Project Design, spring mantles, tablesettings

Before today’s post I want to invite you to join me, and a talented group of others, this Friday [March 11th] for the next installment of Project Design #ProjectDesignNow.  We will be sharing “How to Style Your Spring Mantle Two Ways”.  It’s sure to be fun and chock full of ideas for putting some spring touches in your home.

Garden, Home and Party: Design Project

Amber B. Design Studio

ciao! newport beach

classic ⋅ casual home ⋅ home

Dimples and Tangles

Katiedid

Lisa Mende Design

Lucy Williams Interiors

Rough Luxe Lifestyle

The Pink Pagoda

Now to Table settings with a touch of whimsey…

I have enjoyed setting a table since I was a little girl.  Once I moved into my own apartment I found any and every excuse to have people over for a meal.  It was very brave of my friends to accept since I wasn’t a very accomplished cook back in the day. The joy was, and still is, the creative process of setting the table.

Garden, Home and Party: setting the table

Once a new bride, I used my china, crystal and silver for every dinner party we hosted. With time, I realized that it was just as much fun, if not more, to keep it casual. Today, I still enjoy setting a formal table for the right occasion, but I mostly use my everyday pottery / porcelain dishes, and simple glassware.  I interchange my sterling flatware with a couple of other, more casual, sets of flatware depending on the dishes I’m using.

of course I have my ruler handy when setting the table to make sure the utensils and plates are the appropriate distance from each other and the edge of the table. 🙂

Garden, Home and Party: table setting

{via}

I enjoy the fun of thinking of new ways of setting a table, and find there are lots of out of the box ideas online that inspire creating a table the reflects a season or a theme. A bit of whimsey never hurts.

Last summer my friend Wendy hosted a birthday celebration.  I love her use of Lori Mitchell figures that reflect summer fun.

Garden, Home and Party: tablesettings

Shells were on the table as well as her beautiful crystal bowl filled with water and floating candles.

Garden, Home and Party: tablesettings

{table setting by Wendy M.}

My winter birthday was celebrated at Carla’s, where she used a winter wonderland theme.  It was lovely and worked well with our cooler than usual weather at the time.

Garden, Home and Party: table settings

Garden, Home and Party: table settings

{table setting by Carla W.}

One year for St. Patrick’s Day I planted little pots of 4-leaf clover that Trader Joe’s sold and then gave each guest a chocolate leprechaun.  I enjoy using nursery plants for the table, you can plant them in the garden afterwards. 🙂

Garden, Home and Party: table setting

Garden, Home and Party: table setting

Easter of 2014 I pulled out the Beatrix Potter figures and a few of the Beatrix Potter books I used to read to my kids (and now read to our granddaughters).  I planted a concrete planter with sweet pea and viola.  The violet china pattern was my grandmother’s, and a friend made the runner {thank you Gretchen}

Garden, Home and Party: table setting

Garden, Home and Party: Table settings

This image inspired a table setting of my own when hosting our birthday group.  The guests of honor, Tom and John, identical twins, enjoy an October birthday and I felt it called for something more masculine.

Garden, Home and Party: Table settings

This was my version… {sorry for the glare coming through the window}

Garden, Home and Party: table settings

Garden, Home and Party: Table settings

Last month I hosted a birthday dinner for Mr. B and our youngest son’s birthdays.  I wanted to keep it simple and decided this rusty urn went well with the rustic look of my Jan Barboglio candle holders.  I filled the urn with tree fern from the yard and added a bag of Granny Smith apples.  The candles could have been taller but we didn’t light them since we ate early.

Garden, Home and Party: table setting

Garden, Home and Party: table setting

Moss on a dining table is one of my favorite uses of the sheet moss sold at craft stores. I love the earthy feel to it.  Mixed with roses and other flowers, it’s natural and lovely and transports us to an outdoor setting, even indoors.

Garden, Home and Party: table setting

{via}

Setting the table in an outdoor “room” is where you can enjoy mixing things up a bit. Setting the table with a moss base and using terra cotta pots as the candle holders is clever and fitting for a autumn gathering.  The twigs and berries conjure up an image that a gust of wind blew these pieces to the table top.  This same setting could be recreated indoors.

Garden, Home and Party: table setting

{via Michelle Edwards ~ Sweet Something Design}

I’ll end with a table setting compliments of Martha Stewart.  Woodland creatures, birch tree-looking candles and small pots of moss or fern complete the look.  It’s whimsy at its best. 🙂

Garden, Home and Party: table setting

{via}

I’m out of time, but I’d like to invite you to visit my friend, Kelly over at “talk of the house” for further inspiration for table setting.  This talented blogger takes table setting creativity to a new level.

How do you entertain?  Is there ever a bit of whimsey to your table settings?

Simple Summer Meal

20 Friday Aug 2010

Posted by Karen B. in Dessert, Entertaining, Food, Simple Meals for the Avid Cook

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Entertaining, recipes, tablesettings

I live in Southern California and somehow we were cheated our summer!  To be perfectly honest, I don’t miss the heat, but the sunshine, which SoCal is known for, is missing as well.  We get a burst of it sometime around 1:00 PM daily but honestly, is there anything better than waking up to a sunny morning?

So, I decided I needed to move my casual dinner for good friends indoors on Saturday evening.  We enjoyed our appetizer in the atrium and found it was relaxing and comfortable—but the idea of sitting on the patio for dinner seemed out of the question.  Its August for goodness sake!  We shouldn’t have to worry about cold this time of year.

My menu was:   Appetizer:  Skewered Greek Salad by Giada De Laurentis, roasted almonds.  Dinner:  Grilled Citrus Salmon (recipe below), Roasted Baby Potatoes with Herbs (Giada De Laurentis) and Barefoot Contessa’s Panzanella (from her Parties cookbook/her 2nd) and Dessert:     Mocha Alaska Pie (recipe below).

This is delicious and easy and you can assemble the skewers the morning of the dinner. Thanks to my friend Alison at paper{whites} for introducing me to this recipe.

Sorry for the slightly blurred picture.

This picture doesn't do this recipe justice---I really have to learn to take better photographs of food.

Since dessert was my favorite part of this particular meal I thought I’d start with that recipe:  Note, I couldn’t find my pie plate (I’m wondering if I got rid of the Corning pie plate in anticipation of purchasing an Emile Henri pie dish from Williams Sonoma, and then never got around to it?!)  In any event, I prepared this recipe and put it in a glass loaf pan—it really looked nice and the taste certainly didn’t suffer.  So here goes, super easy:

Mocha Alaska Pie (Loaf)

Mix:

1 cup finely crushed chocolate cookie crumbs (I used chocolate cat cookies from Trader Joe’s in the food processor and made crumbs).

¼ cup butter, melted

1 tablespoon sugar

Press into the bottom of a 9” pie dish or a Pyrex loaf pan or  (if you use a loaf pan, generously line the bottom and side of the pan with plastic wrap so that when you are ready to remove the dessert you can get it out of the loaf pan without problem, you will not be able to bake it using this method but it didn’t seem to matter.  The crust held together perfectly and tasted delicious)

If you use a pie plate you can bake the crust for 10 minutes at 350° then cool completely.

Meanwhile, let ice cream sit on counter for about 10-15 minutes to soften slightly.

1 pint of coffee ice cream (you can substitute the coffee ice cream with chocolate if you don’t like coffee flavor)

1 pint of vanilla ice cream

1 jar of hot fudge sauce

Once the ice cream has softened spoon the coffee ice cream over the crust and press to even it out.  Then repeat with the vanilla ice cream.  Freeze.

Just before serving add hot fudge sauce over top and serve—yummy!  If you wanted to kick it up another notch you could roast almonds and sprinkle those over the top of the fudge.

Grilled Citrus Salmon (recipe from a 2004 Bon Appetit magazine)

Serves 6

1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

4 cloves of garlic, minced

2 dashes ground red pepper (cayenne)

2 dashes salt

1 teaspoon dried basil (fresh can be substituted)

2 teaspoons capers

3 pounds salmon, fresh, cut into serving size portions

In a small saute pan over medium heat, combine the lemon juice, olive oil, butter, mustard, garlic, red pepper, salt, basil and capers.  While stirring, bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Place salmon pieces skin side down on a piece of heavy duty foil with the edges folded up to make a pan.  Pour the sauce evenly over the fish.

Prepare your BBQ to medium fire/heat.  Place the foil pan (with fish) on the grill and cover with a lid.  Barbecue for 10 to 12 minutes, depending on thickness of serving portions.  The fish will be light pink and flaky when cooked.

More recipes next week.

Recent Posts: Garden, Home & Party

Homes that welcome the season

A little this and that

The color of autumn

Wall Art Inspiration for our bungalow

Project Design: Outdoor Living Spaces

Enter your email address to subscribe to GH&P and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Instagram




Follow gardenhomeparty on Twitter

Follow on Tumblr

Google Plus

Recent Posts

  • Homes that welcome the season
  • A little this and that
  • The color of autumn
  • Wall Art Inspiration for our bungalow
  • Project Design: Outdoor Living Spaces

Categories

  • Accessories; details
  • Annual WP Report Card
  • Antiques
  • Architects & Builders
  • Architectural elements
  • Autumn
  • Bastille Day
  • Bathroom
  • Bedrooms
  • Christmas
  • Collections & Accessories
  • Cottages
  • Decorating
  • Designer
  • Dessert
  • Dining Room
  • DIY (do it yourself)
  • Drink
  • Easter
  • Entertaining
  • Fall Entertaining and Decorations
  • Family
  • Flowers
  • Food
  • Gardening
  • Gardens
  • Halloween
  • Holiday/Seasonal cooking
  • Holidays
  • House and Home
  • Independence Day
  • Kitchen
  • Maintenance
  • Misc
  • Outdoor living
  • Paint Color
  • Party Planning
  • Personal Information
  • Recipes
  • Renovating
  • Seasons
  • Simple Meals for the Avid Cook
  • Spring
  • St. Patrick's Day
  • Storage/Closets/Pantry
  • Study/Office
  • Summer
  • Thanksgiving
  • Traditions
  • Travel
  • Trends
  • Uncategorized
  • Valentine's Day

Recommended

  • Bastion & Lark
  • Content in a Cottage
  • Cote de Texas
  • French Essence
  • French Kissed
  • Garden, Home and Party
  • Greige Design
  • Heirloom Philosophy
  • Henhurst Interiors
  • In the Fields
  • Jennings & Gates
  • Making Magique
  • Miss Mustard Seed
  • paper{whites}
  • Polished Pebble
  • Providence Ltd Design
  • Restoring our 1890 Victorian
  • Slim Paley
  • Splendid Willow
  • Talk of the House
  • TG Interiors
  • The Adventures of Tartanscot
  • The Enchanted Home
  • The House of Edward
  • The Lady's Life
  • The Pioneer Woman
  • The Polohouse
  • Tone on Tone
  • Trouvais
  • Velvet & Linen

Archives

  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • October 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • October 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007

Top Posts & Pages

  • {Home} Cozy and other adjectives that describe home
  • Rose Tarlow, Tricia Foley...stirs the naturalist in me
  • {Garden, Home and Party} A designer to love...Melissa Ervin
  • About GH&P
  • {GHP} Summer...just do it
  • The Secret Garden
  • Fireplace mantles and the mantle clock
  • Project Design: Outdoor Living Spaces
  • {Garden} Boxwood Basics
  • {Home} Neutral ground

Subscribe via RSS

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Topics

4th of July accessories antiques Architects & Builders Austin Autumn Barefoot Contessa bathroom bedrooms birthdays blog favorites Blogging blue & white decor books centerpieces chairs Christmas collections cooking cottage cupboards decorating for fall decorating styles designer details of a home do-it-yourself Dogs dream house Easter easy recipe easy recipes Engagement Party English gardens Entertaining fall Family Father's Day Flowers foyer furniture Garden Gardening Halloween hardwood floors holiday home home accessorizing House Beautiful magazine how-to Independence Day interiors Irish Stew kitchens Kooboo chairs library mirrors Mother's Day neutral color palate New Years Eve Organizing Outdoor living paint color Pets in the home plaid recipe recipes Rogers Gardens Spring summer living Table Settings television Texas Thanksgiving Valentine's Day weddings

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Garden, Home & Party
    • Join 981 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Garden, Home & Party
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...