Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Planning Ahead Pays Off in the Form of Forest Themed Thanksgiving Dinnerware

*Thanks to everyone who entered the coupons.com giveaway for a Home Depot or Amazon gift card. The winner is......The Cape on the Corner! congratulations, and check your e-mail if you haven't already :)

Every year, for the past several years, we've hosted Thanksgiving dinner for Dave's extended family (his parents and aunt and uncle, specifically). And last year, what with our new formal dining room and all, I finally got around to setting a pretty table for the occasion. Well, I thought it was pretty.



My big splurge was the Patch NYC dessert plates from Target. I love them. Then I picked up plain white dinner plates from TJ Maxx and those chargers from, I think, Hobby Lobby.

I'm planning on a very similar table this year....I may switch up the centerpiece some, because I feel like I should, but same plates, same black and white and gold theme.

But one thing that made my table a little less beautiful last year was my lack of coordinating serving dishes. I did have this bowl and platter that my mom picked up for me (again from TJ  Maxx, I believe)


And then I had these salt and pepper shakers from Target:


And when I ordered the plates, I couldn't resist adding in this clearanced serving bowl:


But there's a lot of food floating around at Thanksgiving, so we still had to use some serving dishes that......didn't go! Horrors.

So I've made it my mission to pick up more white serving dishes before this coming Thanksgiving. And I've made great progress. And an interesting trend has developed completely by accident: not only do I have a white/black/gold theme going on, I have a woodland creature/forest theme going on! Which pleases me greatly. Sometimes the universe tells you that you need forest themed fancy dishes by putting them in the thrift stores for you. Message received, universe!

Okay, actually, this first thing is the only thrift find so far:


But do you see what that is?! It's a mushroom sugar and butter dish set! Google has yielded many images of these exact same pieces painted in a startling variety of colors, so I'm gathering this was a popular paint-your-own-pottery set at some point. The ones on Etsy all claim to be from the 70's. Maybe? I don't know. I'm just glad mine is painted white instead of purple and yellow (true story).

Then one day I got a text from my friend Kristi letting me know that Tuesday Morning had octopus pillows on clearance. Of course I got an octopus pillow. But I also spotted these bowls:


Right? So I had to buy those. When one of those owls is wearing a heaping hat of mashed potatoes, I'm going to be very happy indeed.

And, finally, my elusive gravy boat! I've never had a real gravy boat before. We've always improvised, and it's never felt very....grown up. So I've been on the hunt for a white gravy boat all year. I was shocked when exactly what I needed turned up a couple of weeks ago....in the Dollar Spot at Target! It was one of the $3 things, not really a dollar, but that's okay. $3 for a perfectly serviceable and attractive ceramic gravy boat (I felt like I needed to make it clear that's it not plastic. But a plastic gravy boat would be really weird, wouldn't it?) is a good deal in my book:


I'll still be keeping my eye open for more between now and Thanksgiving, but I think we're in pretty decent shape now.

13 comments:

  1. love it! I host Thanksgiving and my motto is to use "the fancy stuff".... all the nice plates and dishes that the women in my family wedding registered for, never ever used, then passed down to me. my theory they were storing them JUST IN CASE the queen ever came to visit and demanded plates that weren't from Target....

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    1. Ironically, my fancy dishes ARE the ones from Target, and my every day dishes are the ones handed down from my grandmother :)

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  2. A woodland themed table might just be the cutest thing ever. Seriously...those owl bows and the butter dish/canister...too cute for words. Love it all. And I like how the black/gold combo will work for any time of the year - including Christmas.

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  3. Those owls with mashed potatoes will be DIVINE!

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  4. Oh I like them -- fancy forest decor! I bet these could easily be made wintery too!
    - Lora

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  5. Oh that puts me right in a fall mood. Love your table setting. That gravy boat is awesome!!!

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  6. That gravy boat is awesome! Love a good basket weave!

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  7. mashed potato hat!!!!!

    I love it all. Seriously. But especially mashed potato hats!

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  8. I'm so with Cassie. OMG! I need it! I love animal decor. The plates are so awesome!

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  9. Love the woodland theme you have going on! Thanksgiving is in just over a couple weeks up here and I really should be thinking about decorating and what I'll be cooking. :)

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  10. Love the woodsy feel of everything. I'm a complete sucker for dinnerware so this is right up my alley.

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