Tablescape Thursday - A Special Fall Birthday

Tablescape Thursday is such a fun party on Susan's porch every week. You can just imagine the rattle of dishes and platters, cups and glasses, silverware mixed with the snap of freshly pressed tablecloths being laid across tables all over blogland ....getting ready for the party! This week my table is a special one set for a special day....My husband's birthday is Monday the 4th.




So I gathered and shopped our house to create a handsome fall tablescape with him in mind.



Welcome to the table -- we're so glad that you could join us for this happy celebration.



The centerpiece contains two pheasants that are usually on our mantle for fall. Then I gathered pumpkins, leaves and acorns from my fall arrangements and added them to the table.




The gold and brown napkins came from Walmart last year as well and the maple leaf napkin rings.



Pewter goblets were wedding gifts almost 35 years ago.



A layering of the dishes, placemat and treble clef flatware.



These dishes were from Tuesday Morning a couple of years ago. They started out at $10 and got marked down and marked down until they ended up in the drastic clearance bin for 99 cents -- my kind of markdown!


Pewter dinner plates purchased from eBay to add to ones we got as wedding gifts. I think we had three and I finally got three more last year to finish up the set.



These placemats came from an antique store last year -- they actually have a design on the other side, but for this table, I turned them to the backside which is a little more plain.



Tablecloth came from Target last fall.


This hammered aluminum platter came from my father-in-laws house. I used it this summer for a beachy tablescape and I've decided to use it in at least one of my tablescapes each season.






I always like to check the centerpiece from all four seats to make sure everyone gets a "good" side.



Overview of the table.


Overview of the centerpiece.



Tabletop view.




Glad you could join us this week for our birthday celebration....I'll let you in on a little secret.....I'm really taking him out to eat! No dishes to wash.

Be sure to check out all the dish delights set just for you at "Between Naps On the Porch" -- where everybody's invited to the party week after week! Thanks Susan!


See ya!

Charmed!

Charm bracelets are one of those pieces of jewelry that you either love or hate. You are either charmed by them....or find the jingle, jangle a bit distracting. A few weeks ago Miss Janice showed us her charm bracelet and told us about her charms and so last week when I wore this one -- I decided to show it too.



As you can see...my bracelet is filled with hearts. I started this bracelet right before our 25th wedding anniversary -- I decided that I would find 25 different charms for each year. Well the next year I decided to add another....and then another....and then another....would you like a closer look?



My bracelet now contains 34 charms.



Since many of you know that I love to "play" with the dishes on Tablescape Thursday -- you probably won't be surprised that three of the charms are made out of broken china.



I've given a couple of these charms to friends who were going through really tough times to remind them that God can take our brokenness and create something quite beautiful with it, if we're willing to look at it from a different perspective. I've already picked out my 35th charm for this anniversary. This one is because nothing "charms" me more than .....





....being "Nana" to our four grandgirls!

Yes -- I'm totally charmed! Can you imagine what this will look like (and weigh) for our 50th anniversary?

See ya!

A Readers Giveaway

Not too long ago Paula, over at "Sweet Pea"'s blog had a book giveaway and I was the lucky winner of Best Friends which I am reading now. I thought it was a great idea to share some of our favorite books -- so today I've got a collection of books by Michael Lee West also known in the blogging world as "Gollum" of "Designs by Gollum". I've loved these books and I know that one of you will too!

1st up we have American Pie. This is the blurb in the back of the book. "When a freak accident brings three very different sisters together again, they end up confronting their past, their future, and one another in this hilarious and moving novel."


Next, She Flew The Coop. "The two main occupations in Limoges, Louisiana (population: 905), seem to be spreading juicy gossip and consoling the unfortunate with casseroles. Ind in this early spring of 1952, there is ample opportunity for both--with sixteen-year-old and pregnant (by the Baptist minister) Olive Nepper, currently languishing in a coma after drinking pop laced with rose poison. But the plight of Olive and her family is hardly the only story spicing up the rumor mill in this small Southern community of unpredictable eccentrics, wandering husbands, and unsatisfied wives--and few local sins will be put right by home cooking. From Michael Lee West comes a beautifully rendered portrait of small-town Southern life, filled with humanity that brilliantly weaves comedy with dark calamity."



Or how about Consuming Passions? "Laced with delicious secret recipes passed from generation to generation, Consuming Passions is Michael Lee West's delightfully quirky memoir of an adventurous food-obsessed life. By watching a multitude of relatives cook, squabble, and carry on tradition, West went from a noncooking student to a full-on gourmet of food and words. Throughout, she lends her distinctive humor and often hilarious insights to stories about her trials and tribulations as a Southern woman who becomes an "accidental gourmet." In this irresistible memoir, mothers swing from chandeliers, elderly aunts brew love potions, a South American nymphomaniac stirs up trouble at a Louisiana barbecue joint, and a cabbage-eating ghost haunts relatives--all in pursuit of good food. Using her own experience and the witticisms of relatives, West fills these pages with insights such as "Never share men or recipes. Something's bound to get stolen" and "Live and learn. Die and get food. That's the Southern way." Wonderfully presented and thoroughly entertaining, this warm and witty work unites West's evocative voice and humor with the uniquely American form of kitchen tales."


And last, my favorite -- Mermaids in the Basement. "Reeling from the loss of her mother, plagued with a bad case of writer's block (and don't even talk about those extra twenty pounds), Renata DeChavannes feels as though everything is just plain wrong. And that was before the tabloids caught her sweetheart, filmmaker Ferg lauderdale, sharing an intimate squeeze with Hollywood's hottest young tamale. But the granddaughter of the formidable Honora DeChavannes possesses more hell than belle in her backbone--and she's about to reclaim it. Heading south to Honora's home on the Gulf Coast, Renata is determined to stop feeling like a wilted gardenia and emerge as the unstoppable kudzu her beloved grandmother proudly proclaimed she would be. But for that to happen Renata's got to face some not-so-genteel ghosts from her past, discover the truth about the mother she desparately misses, and make peace with the first man who abandoned her and broke her heart: her handsome and distant father.

So it's really simple -- if you think these are books you would enjoy...just throw you name in the hat. I'll keep this open until Tuesday night -- then I'll pick a name and put these in the mail on Wednesday so that by next weekend....


....one of you will be reading these!

Good luck!

See ya.

Fall Fluffing, Treasure Hunting and a Cloche Party

Hi everybody! Marty's having another cloche party and I sure wanted to join the fun. I hope that nobody minds if I show a little "Fall Fluffing" as well. The winds of fall have blown through my house and brought a few changes.....




...My summer swan lake turned into.....



... a fall pumpkin patch! A couple of you asked me to show my sideboard that was peeking out behind one of my last tablescapes -- so here's a full picture. I found this several years ago at an antique store.




A couple of closer shots. Pumpkins, indian corn, fall leaves, dried hydrangeas, a few peacock feathers and some acorns make up my fall arrangement.



I found this monogrammed silver plated coffee pot when I was "treasure hunting" a couple of weeks ago. Not my initials....but I don't care about that -- I loved it anyway.



Here she is all shined up and in her glory.



.....moving to the other side of the pumpkin patch.....




....it's not a cloche, but my sugar scuttle that was holding summer shells, now contains autumn acorns.


The white damask table runner has been changed to a fall colored tapestry and my coffee server stands ready to keep some refreshments warmed on a crisp fall evening. Maybe some hot cider?



My half round table filled with summer shells and a tureen ready to serve some summer chowder.....



....has moved it's location and also contains pumpkins and a leaf embossed candle in a hurricane globe. (Marty says they count even if it's not a cloche!)




I forgot to show my summer washstand -- think shells -- but it's now dressed for fall.



Yes, we're "back to school" now and writing on my "black board".



Ok - finally! ...an honest to goodness cloche! I've caught a little squirrel.




My apothecary jar contains some fall sunflowers and acorns ....all tied up with a fall bow on top.



A tiny plate of acorns.



I was looking on eBay for an antique postcard of a school and found a very special one!



This school was C.H.Friend in South Boston, VA. When it was a high school -- my mother graduated there --- my father taught there --- and later on when it became an elementary school --- my grandmother was the cafeteria manager. What a fun treasure to find!




Not a cloche, but a tiny glass basket of fallness.




Even the powder room has changed from sandcastles and shells.....



....to scarecrows and acorns!




Found these cute towels at Kohls.




Mr. Scarecrow in the pumpkin patch.



Who doesn't love a friendly little scarecrow man (especially one that obviously can't scare the crows away!)



My front door has changed from a bucket of white flowers to....





An autumn greeting to warmly welcome you.

Wishing everyone a happy, fun-filled Fall and many blessings upon your home and all who enter there.


Be sure to visit Marty at "A Stroll Thru Life" to see what everyone has captured under glass.
See ya!