New Years Tablescape/ Wedding Ideas?

Well hello hello friends! How was everyone's Christmas! Mine was spent with close family and friends eating Norwegian food, and singing songs! It was the PERFECT Christmas! I hope all of you had a fabulous one as well! I thought I would show you my New Years Table scape.

The invitations above for this family meal were only a dollar at Michaels! I love the vintage "cheers" graphic.

 I whipped out our precious china from the wonderful Lu family and decided I would let that be the basis for my New Years table!

I just love the silver swirls! I placed them on turquoise chargers from Michaels to add a pop of icy wintery color. I snagged some vintage silverware from my grandparents wedding and left them unpolished even though my grandma I know is shaking her head reading this....sorry, but I love the vintage charm it adds :) Sets like these can be found at antique shops, the sets don't even have to all match.

As the centerpiece I decided I was going to use a cake pedestal from Homegoods  I purchased a few months back. I love the bling, it's the perfect piece to ring in a glamorous New Year. I topped it off with Simple white roses and silver branches (that you can get at any local craft store or florist) in mercury glass votives also very inexpensive on sale at Michaels arts and crafts store. I sprinkled a little snow leftover from Christmas and added my little sparkling winter sparrow.

The lower tray also has snow and mercury glass votive holders filled with turquoise glass beads to bring a touch of the color upwards. I will remove the candles off the lower tray and serve appetizers and fruit on the bottom tray.

Scattered around the table are vintage cruets (also from my grandmother's stash) with the left over roses from the store bought bouquet and the rest of the mercury glass votives. Each galvanized tin place cards has each guests monogram on it to let them know where they will be sipping champagne and enjoying their evening or morning (not sure if this is a supper or brunch event yet) meal. Each plate is finished with a Chinese box with a favor in it, and tied off with turquoise and champagne colored ribbon. I added some turquoise throw pillows (that I already had) to the chairs to establish that color as a theme.

I am so excited because my grandmother found these beautiful little spoons from her collection with B monograms on them that she gave me. I also am using vintage mother of pearl cheese spreaders.

 Cost plus world market sells new ones, if this a look that you like.

I took down my Christmas berries and the tiny tree that was around my bar and added snow flakes to the garland to make it less Christmasy and more wintery. I created a New Year's thankful and goal tree. On it are pieces of papers of things I am 'thankful" for, and "goals" for the coming year. It is a great reminder of all of our blessings and is a wonderful conversation starter. The branches were free from my sister-in-laws wedding but can be purchased at any craft store. I also placed vintage crystals on the branches. We will have our guests add things to the tree too!

A great idea for drinks is to have a mimosa bar with all kinds of fruit juices and fruit. My favorite flavors are pineapple orange mango, guava, peach, and good old fashioned orange juice. Add a beautiful strawberry to the rim or peach inside and it makes a beautiful cocktail.
Entertaining to: Michael Buble- It's Time

What are your plans and goals for the New Year! I am so thankful for each and every one of you that has supported me and listened to me through my first year of blogging. You all are so amazing and I find your blog posts inspiring and beautiful! Ok....time to end this year long post (no pun intended). Happy New Year and God Bless you and your families this next year. Here is to another fabulous one!

linking up to:

Castello di Amarosa and a Headboard

Hello everyone! Only two more days till Christmas! Recently, we visited the Castello di Amarosa near Calistoga, which is a gorgeous Castle made out of bricks and parts from different ancient castles from around the world. It was spectacular!! I felt as if I was in Tuscany and, the wine was out of this world! I wanted to show you some inspiring pictures from our day there!

The ceilings in the main dining room are stunning and look like old fresco paintings. I also am in love with the beams and chandeliers. If I had a chandelier I would have it dripping with greenery too! Hopefully my home in Germany will have a chandelier so I can do this next Christmas!

 This dragon is from an ancient castle and used to spew tar on enemies when the castle was being attacked.

The gardens were so pretty and the animals were adorable!

The chicken looked like they were wearing shaggy pants!

 Thanks for checking out our little day trip! I also wanted to show you a headboard I am working on for a client.

Before:

These are old mismatched closet doors from a thrift shop that we split apart and painted an antique white. We distressed them, added stain to the scratched areas, and reassembled them with hinges to create a better looking arrangement. Now they look like really old shutters off of an old colonial home and will make a gorgeous headboard for less than $75! We can't wait to show you what they look like in the finished room!

Have a fabulous Christmas Eve Eve!

Simple Christmas Details

Hello there friends! Can you believe Christmas is in three days!!! Where did the time go!?! I wanted to show you some simple and last minute details that will make your home extra special for the festivities of this coming weekend!

The first one is a stove top potpourri. It's easy, costs pennies and makes your home smell delicious! I cut up an orange or a lemon, place it in a small pot of simmering water.  Throw in some cinnamon sticks, a couple dashes of nutmeg, a tsp. of cloves and cranberries for color! Make sure to read the labels of the spices as you are "dashing" them in...I almost put cumin in mine instead of nutmeg....haha! This concoction will last up to a month without the cranberries and a few days with. The best part about it is that is is all natural. There is no toxins or chemicals being put out by artificially scented candles (which I do also love) so, it's healthy for your family! I leave my pot of potpourri simmering all day WHEN I AM HOME. Remember to turn it off when you head out to finish shopping or to attend parties :)  Add more or less of the ingredients to get your desired scent.

Another simple idea is to fill a glass vase or mason jar with greenery, cranberries and top it off with a floating candle. You can switch things up to go with your color scheme. Adding sliced lemons, limes or oranges is also a great look. This arrangement can be done on a much larger scale in a large vase. Get creative and play around with it. I prefer mine to be on the simple side but you can tie bows and bells around it to dress it up a bit. If you are using a fancy water dispenser for your holiday party add oranges, rosemary and cranberries to lightly flavor it and add some color.

I hope you are all getting a ton done and are having fun in the process!! What are some of the last minute things you are doing to prepare for the holidays?

Christmas Tree pictures.....finally

Hello hello everyone! We had our tree set up over two weeks ago but with all my fabulous visitors, design jobs and Christmas festivities I am finally getting to blog about it! I wanted a very white Christmas this year and have been dying to get a flocked tree! It was so pretty the way it was, it was hard to get myself to decorate it. I really wanted to save money on my Christmas decor this year since we have things that we need for our move to Germany. My Budget for the tree decor was $20. I picked through my old ornaments and grabbed everything white, silver, gold, and bronze.

Most of the ornaments are from the dollar store and Ikea and I splurged on a few really beautiful mercury glass ornaments to jazz the crappy ones up! I threw in some twigs to make it more natural and added ripped up music wrapping paper to go along with the garland around my chalkboard. I topped the tree off with a gold bow from the dollar store and wrapped unfinished rough burlap around the bottom.

 It gives the illusion of snow!

To make a simple flower arrangment look more festive simply add greenery or berries and it will look Christmassy instantly!

I also got some new pieces for my family room that I can't wait to share with you!

Time to set up for a dinner party tonight with my wonderful family!

I hope you all are enjoying your decorating, holiday parties and events! Until next time!

Linking up to: