Use What You Have Series: 1. Table Settings

I love setting a pretty table. Cooking…not so much. Recently when my son, Tyler, spent the night with a friend, his mother told me that Tyler was going on and on about the dinner she made. She replied to Tyler, “Well your mom is a good cook too!”. Tyler said, “Really?”

Well, let’s just say I can decorate the heck out of the beautiful table that the distinctly average food sits upon. But we all have our different gifts, right?

This 4-part blog series exists to encourage us to use what we already have in decorating our homes. Being married to the penny pinching man that John is, I am faced with the continual challenge of decorating on a dime.

For this table setting I used these burlap placemats I purchased from the Etsy shop HeyYallandCo last year. I definitely spent more than I wanted to on them but we use them everyday. I make sure that any decor I use is also functional. I also took the time to spray them with 3M Scotchgard to avoid stains from my messy crew.

I picked up the white dishes on clearance at Home Goods a few years back and my mother-in-law gave me the faux gold chargers. For the centerpiece I used the Pottery Barn soup terrine that had been sitting under my cabinet collecting dust and filled it with pinecones we picked up on a trip to Lake Tahoe over 10 years ago. The gold tray was passed on to me by a sweet friend. To incorporate some nature I used the antlers another friend gave me that were just piled up in his garage. Then I added some berry branch clippings I cut from our yard. Lastly I pulled out the wood cookies John cut for me last year from a fallen tree from our property.

Atop each plate I set a page from one of my great aunt’s childhood hymnals along with the berry branches and a glittery cardboard leaf from the dollar section at Target.

Easily one of my most thrifty table settings, yet unique and full of character.

Now if only the meal was this easy!