A little display for the coffee table.

After a full day of rest from all the Thanksgiving preparation, I’m back to blogging!  I normally don’t blog on Saturdays, but I didn’t want to delay on sharing how wonderful Thanksgiving dinner was.  As Mr. M and I live in Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated in October, but as I’m an American, I celebrate Thanksgiving in November.  I wanted our friends to experience an American Thanksgiving so we invited ten of our friends to join us for the feast.  My girlfriend from back home also made the drive across the border to join us, giving her the opportunity to relax and enjoy Thanksgiving without all the stress of cooking for the first time in many, many years.

1.  Candles.  I don’t have hurricane glasses at home, but I had these wide mouth cylindrical vases.  I popped in a short pillar candle in each and dressed up the vases with eucalyptus leaves that had dried from my wedding flowers.

2.  DIY Napkin rings.  I bought these brown rosette vase fillers during a Boxing Day sale last year.  I liked them because they didn’t seem seasonal and could be used for everyday display.  The colors were very fitting for Thanksgiving.  I hot glued some twine around the base of the rosettes and repurposed them as napkin rings.

3.  Table decor.  Our dining room isn’t normally set up like this, but I had to do some furniture rearrangement to accommodate the platters of food and seating for the guests.  The rust/white table cloth was a shower curtain I found on clearance at Target.  I think the pattern is really more Aztec, but I liked the colors so much that I didn’t care.  Also, the pattern isn’t obvious once the burlap runner covered it (which was from my wedding).  The berry branches used in the centerpiece were the only things I bought specifically for this dinner.  I completely scored on theses branches (found at Michaels)!  They were originally $9.99 and I bought them on clearance for about $2.50 per stem!  After taxes, I got three branches for less than the price of one.  So awesome!

4.  Place setting.  It’s not exactly classy to use paper napkins for a sit down dinner, but I had no choice.  Plus, these rust colored napkins were left over from a previous party, so I didn’t have to spend extra money on them.

5.  Creating more seating.  As our dining table only seats six comfortably, I had to use my imagination on how to fit more seating to accommodate twelve in our cozy dining room.  This is one of those moments that I was so glad that I bought backless barstools with adjustable heights.  I spun the seats to table height, purchased 24×24 MDF boards from Home Depot, secured them with a little Poster Putty, threw on a table cover, and voilà!  I had three new temporary tables to accommodate six more guests.  The dining chairs were moved to the small tables and replaced with long benches from other rooms of the house at the big table.  Our house ended up looking like a quaint bistro!

It was lucky that the color scheme in our house worked well with the autumn season.  I had bought all these fabrics with colors of rust, gold, cranberry, and sage, but hadn’t gotten around to turning them into pillow covers or curtains.  Well, chalk it up to procrastination (for once)!  I was able to use some of the fabrics as extra table linens and decor.

Much gratitude for all the bounty at our dinner table!

We hope you had a very wonderful Thanksgiving!  It was so nice to be able to share this with our Canadian friends.  Now, to tackle those leftovers!  I’ve got the turkey carcass simmering in a bath of water.  Turkey soup, anyone?