{a thanksgiving holiday tablescape}

Chris and I decided not to travel home for Thanksgiving this year (flights are insane and we have been traveling like crazy this past year), but instead of spending the holiday alone in Chicago both of our families decided to travel to us!  Both our parents and siblings rented an old victorian house together in Lincoln Park and the best part of the place was the super old school dining room (complete with cheesy teal tufted chairs!) where we got to serve Thanksgiving dinner.

I really wanted to make the dinner special for our families since they traveled so far to be with us and BBJ Linen helped me bring my vision to life by giving us access to their amazing catalogue of designer rental linens and chargers.  I would have loved to go super modern and use this striped linen or use some punchy colored chargers, but I decided to keep it classic with a luxe navy blue damask topped with their gold braided glass chargers and some simple texture of with these marquis napkins.  I finished the look of the table using my own white dinnerware and gold flatware (is anyone tired of seeing this flatware yet?!?! because I'm certainly not. ok good).   For the centerpieces I made one large arrangement surrounded by five smaller arrangements then mixed in gold taper candles and gold votives.

 {check. out. those. chairs.  pretty sure they have been there since 1886 when this rental home was built}

 {the federal damask linen looks even better in person than it does in photos if you can believe it!}

 {we pre-ordered some flowers including decorative cabbage, garden roses, mums, thistle, hypernicum berry and eucalyptus from Whole Foods then arranged them as a family the night before}

 {gold vase from Target}

 {in addition to the linens BBJ gave us, we rented some luxe Murano glassware from Hall's.  Renting linens or glassware for special occasions really takes the entire event up a notch and its surprisingly resonable- it only cost $55 for us to rent 13 place settings of this Murano glassware which included red wine, water and a champagne flute!}

{I know that Crackers like this are traditionally used for Christmas, but I just love the lighthearted-ness they add to the beginning of dinner and they come with a prize (like mini playing cards, a yo-yo or pocket mirror), a joke AND a paper crown- who's going to turn that down!?}}

 {garden roses are some of my all-time favorite flowers I just can't resist them when they are available}

{we were having so much fun at dinner that I forgot to take any photos of us all together at the table- but my sister in law did capture this one of a portion of the guests near the end of the night- wearing the paper crowns from our crackers of course!}

{autumn color palette & tablescape}

To go along with the floral arrangement I posted about yesterday, I created this table-scape inspired by a deeper autumn color palette.  I started with a kraft paper runner (the same roll from our wedding is still going strong!) layered with another smaller wrapping paper printed with a modern black trellis design.  The table decor was simply the three floral arrangements which brought in the autumn color palette of oranges, oxbloods, and greens.

It is pretty rare that I don't use our gold chargers in place settings (I really need to invest in one more set of chargers, but I just love the gold ones so much that it's hard to break away).  I then layered each setting with a mix of our white dinner plates and black salad plates.  While my general policy is to buy everything in white so that it all works together no matter what, I found a set of these dark glossy black salad plates at a thrift store a while back and figured they wouldn't hurt to have around especially for Halloween!  I rounded everything out with gold flatware and a simple black/ white striped napkin plus a pop of color from the vintage green glass water cups.

And get the look for yourself (bonus points since almost all of these things are from Target!!):

kraft paper roll  |  gold candlesticks  |  floral arrangement DIY  |  gold votive set  |  graphic print napkins  |  gold prism charger  |  brass tray  |  green glass water tumbler  |  gold serving set  

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by Target via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Target.

{fall inspired florals}

On a recent trip to Whole Foods, I could not help myself, but to pick up all these amazing dark fall florals.  Our local Whole Foods usually gets some pretty boring selections in the flower department so when I spotted these lotus pods, hypernicum berry and thistle (all on sale!) I just knew I had to put something together!  I threw in a bunch of deep pink spray roses to give it a little femininity and pop of color.

I know it's been all over pinterest, but the first person I saw make an arrangement in a hollowed out pumpkin was my mother when I was in grade school and I remember thinking at the time that it was just about the coolest thing I had ever seen.  I picked up three of these "pie" pumpkins also from Whole foods, hollowed them out and then popped a small glass vase in each one.  I am sure you could skip the vase part, but I was concerned the pumpkins would get super soggy within a day- these ones are still going strong about 4 days later.

Be sure to check back tomorrow to see the full tablescape that went along with these arrangements!

{budget florals: 4 arrangements for $25}

If I could fill every corner of my house with fresh floral arrangements every week, I most certainly would, but it would also cost a lot.  The good news is that both my local supermarket and nearby Whole Foods sell a variety of in season single blossom bunches.  I can usually find a good selection of 4 or 5 different flowers priced around $5 to $8 per bunch.  On a recent errand this past weekend, I picked up 4 bunches of flowers (listed below) and the total came out to only $25!  Since the spray roses and eucalyptus cover a lot of surface area in an arrangement, I was able to get 3 good sized floral pieces and one mini arrangement out of these 4 bunches to place all around our place!

 {two arrangements went into our entryway in white ceramic trophy shaped vases from Target}

 {one arrangement was placed on my desk in a vintage milk glass container}

 {the last little arrangement was placed in our guest bathroom in a small bud vase from CB2}

{succulent centerpiece: mixing real + faux}

One thing I miss the most about our previous place in LA is our succulent garden.  I opted not to bring along any of the succulents from those planters on our move to Chicago since we don't have outdoor space here and I didn't think they would survive the move/living indoors.  After being here for almost a year, I have noticed quite a few people who have had luck with succulents indoors so I thought I would try it out.  Rather than do a full succulent centerpiece, I decided to hedge my bets on the plants living more than a week by buying only a few real ones and mixing them in with some faux ones.  Succulents have such a waxy appearance anyway that faux succulents actually look really realistic. You can find a really good selection of faux succulents in the floral department of Michaels or right here.  The real ones were purchased at Home Depot and you can buy online right here.

{re-using one of the wood planters we used for our wedding centerpieces}

 {yes I wore gardening gloves even for this small project because I am deathly afraid of spiders.}

 {real vs. faux}

 {can you tell which ones are real?}

{floral guide: thanksgiving table arrangement}

Not having access to the flower mart in downtown LA has been a big adjustment for me, but luckily I was able to find a cute flower shop around the corner from our new place that was able to order some amazing cut flowers for me this Thanksgiving.  Here is the flower guide for the two arrangements I put together for our Thanksgiving table this Thursday.  Note that I did end up adding some craspedia to the arrangements that I already had at the house so it didn't end up getting photographed above.

{our wedding: florals by Hello Gem}

 

Just in case you didn't see it earlier this week, Chelsea of Hello Gem posted all about our wedding florals on Green Wedding Shoes along with some helpful tips for DIY brides.

I am so lucky to not only have Chelsea as a friend, but also as a talented floral and event designer.  I was able to give Chelsea some minimal inspiration images (like this, this & this) which she turned around to perfectly execute exactly what I had envisioned as dream centerpieces and bouquets for our wedding.

One thing I knew for sure was that I wanted pretty and soft bridal/bridesmaid bouquets that absolutely had to include white peonies, succulents and white anemones.  For the centerpieces, I wanted organic feeling arrangements that didnt have too much color besides green and white.  It was also really important to me that we use some of the deep black succulents from my own garden in the centerpieces and it was wonderful to use something I grew myself and they also added a pop to the arrangements.  Chelsea also created the festive flower crowns that two of my bridesmaids and our flower girl wore on the wedding day (seen here).

 Here is Chelsea's breakdown of all the different flowers she used:

{graphics by Hello Gem, images by EPLove}