Greetings! I recently began showing you some of the arrangements the garden club did at our cottage retreat for a tour of homes they held over the holidays. And I stopped the tour with the downstairs bedroom...
Today, I'd like to continue the tour with the dining room which is where the club routed guests next on the tour...
This empire chest is the first thing you see when you enter from the bedroom. The ladies took a cue from the magnolia leaf botanicals on the wall and used magnolia leaves in the arrangements...
In addition to the magnolia leaves, they used a variety of greenery including such things as ginger leaves, and what I think might be pittosporum. Then, they tucked red and white roses and baby's breath into the greenery...
Ginger leaves, as seen here, tend to curl up after they've been cut, and I thought they were an interesting choice with their variegated foliage...
The baby's breath and magnolia leaves held up well...
So you might want to remember that if you're using live florals...
A famous floral designer once stated that it's best to use very realistic faux greenery and then tuck in bits of live greenery and florals. These can then be replaced as needed. With all live elements, you would be constantly tweaking...
Speaking of which, here's the arrangement stripped of the roses that lasted just long enough for the event alone. You could extend their shelf life somewhat with floral picks...
In this shot, the ladies added even more height to this cabinet with the addition of a poinsettia in a porcelain Nantucket basket tucked amongst greenery, baby's breath, and mums...
Suffice it to say, there was a LOT of climbing around on ladders. ;-)
Like in the shot above as well as here...
And here...
And here...
Now, in terms of the table, I gave the garden club ladies a choice of which china to use: Lenox Everyday Winter Greetings (our everyday Christmas pattern), Tiffany Holiday (our formal Christmas pattern), and Wedgwood Nantucket (in which I had four Christmas accents plates)...
The ladies chose to use the Nantucket along with some red plates I found on clearance this summer and some white chargers that we've had for many years. On the bottom was a woven charger...
With the selection made, the table took on a more casual tone, so we used our dark bamboo-handled flatware with its rustic look...
And simple goblets...
The ladies were leery of using silver, crystal, and fine china due to the risk of breakage, and though I am a big fan of Holiday, I think the casual setting of Nantucket worked just fine with the other elements in the room...
And in terms of the china, this is not a Christmas pattern commonly seen which made it more interesting for the tour guests...
After trying a wide variety of runners (and not having any success), Wendy of the blog Ivory Spring suggested I make one from a tablecloth, and I heeded her advice. My friend/cousin Nancy made these from a Christmas tablecloth I found at Marshall's. These runners ended up being only a few dollars each, and their wider width worked perfectly...
The table also included two white cake stands...
And a centerpiece of fresh fruit, nuts, and peppermint sticks...
Loved this pomegranate...
The lemons were a vivid contrast with the other fruit...
An artichoke was an interesting choice...
And citrus came straight off the tree, with leaves and stems still attached...
They tucked in red roses on the day of the tour...
Which lasted till the tour ended...
On the server, they nestled three candles with nuts, key limes, pomegranates, cherries, pears, and greenery, filling one of my square chargers...
And filled another of my Nantucket baskets with rosemary, baby's breath, roses, and mums (this shot was taken before it was tweaked)...
Just around the corner in the living room was the tree...
This is where they made an exception since I'm allergic to live trees...
One of the club members had this spare artificial tree...
And they filled it with beachy ornaments...
From hither...
Thither...
And yon...
Along with some straw chain garlands I found years ago...
And afterwards, I tucked red berries and greenery in with the branches to fill in holes. ;-)
And I popped some pine cones in there, too...
If I had it to do over again, I would just bring all the ornaments from home to display because I like a full tree that's a bit of a jumble, particularly when the tree's artificial. Besides, less is more doesn't apply to a Christmas tree in my book. More is never enough because shiny objects love company! ;-)
Next, Myra and Joan filled this table with magnolia leaves...
And pine cones sprayed gold...
Along with Myra's candleholders filled with cranberries...
Myra actually layered some of her compotes with her candlesticks to achieve this look...
And she used floral wax to secure them so they wouldn't tip over, especially when lit...
The sailor nutcracker belonged to one of the club members...
Some of the other elements in the room included this bow that Joan made and secured to our vintage life ring...
And a plump little cardinal nesting on the shells in this tin pail...
Next the guests walked through the kitchen and peeped into the powder room next door which the ladies decorated as well...
One of the girls, originally from Australia, made this kissing ball from mini carnations...
And hung it from the cabinet above the sink where the ball could be seen reflected in the mirror...
These little led lite (is that what they're called???) candles rested on the back of the toilet, surrounded by moss, pine, and some golden pine cones...
Back in the kitchen, the ladies were busy climbing ladders to add greenery up high...
And then they decorated around our lamps and birdhouses...
Now... are the biscuits referred to here, biscuits as in American bisquits OR bisquits as in English biscuits which are actually American cookies???
The greenery here is cedar with tiny blue berries along with some red berries...
And the same here...
While the garden club members made simple little wreaths for the windows...
Brie is served here with champagne. Just don't drink this because I think it was really something like dish washing liquid in water...
But those are real cranberries (or are those grapes?) on the rims of those flutes...
They decorated this wheel of brie with jelly in the shape of a poinsettia...
And added little pieces of tortilla bread, cut into the shape of leaves...
Across the room the ladies echoed the poinsettia on the brie with these three poinsettia blossoms...
And then there were the sweets that they brought on their little stand...
One of the girls brought her own cups, saucers, and plates she wanted to use, and the pattern looks vintage to me. I contributed the little stirrers that look like rock candy on the ends...
And look how pretty this cake is...
I believe that is sugared rosemary surrounding the bottom along with either cranberries or grapes on the top and sides...
Would you believe we didn't eat this beautiful cake? No, they did something to the icing to make it hold up and not melt during the five hour time stretch. But a girl can dream...
Speaking of dreaming, a lot of the tour participants thought this fruit tower on the kitchen counter was dreamy...
They used a variety of fruits on this and tucked berries and greenery into the arrangement as well...
And if you look closely, the lady who brought these stands said that she made the top two stands from margarita glasses...
Which she attached to graduated sizes of plates, with the bottom being a regular cake plate...
We had fun watching the light play on the counters...
It looked as if the light ray was dancing about rather giddily. Maybe it had a sip of that (faux) champagne. Champagne can do that, you know. ;-)
Now, just off the kitchen is a back porch with two doors that open onto it -- a set of French doors in the dining room and a door from the kitchen that also has a screen on it which had to remain open throughout the tour...
The ladies used my regular wreath on the back door which is composed of bird eggs (what else for a magpie nest!), and they simply tucked cedar into that. This remained open into the kitchen. Here's a shot of the back door wreath...
They also hung something from the light fixture as seen here. I'm sorry that we didn't get better pictures of the back porch, but there was just so much happening...
Here's a shot of a little arrangment they used on the screen door...
And some raintree blossoms they used around the porch along with oyster shells...
Now, I found a few more shots of the front porch which I shared last week...
And a few parting shots of the interior in case you missed them in Part I...
This horse was running loose in the foyer...
And was trying to eat the garlands on the staircase...
This wreath on the bedroom door was a little out of his reach...
As was the teaset they placed on the bed along with Susan's (Susan in the garden club, not our Susan of BNOTP) little vintage blue hankies she used there...
Those palm fronds looked tempting, but he couldn't leap over the bed to get to them...
Though he gave it the old college try...
And even though the pansies and the mint in this small arrangement were tempting...
As were the palmetto fronds and the starfish on the wall...
He made off with the chocolate from the Christmas stocking, instead. ;-)
Now, because it's Florida in the winter...
I thought you might enjoy seeing what was blooming during the holidays and beyond (with the help of our frost blankets on some evenings)...
[Please note, that last shot was a shout-out to mischievous Rhonda of Shell Belle's Tiki Hut who suggested I do that after the tour. Oh, if only I had thought of it ahead of time!]
And that's a wrap! I'm hooking up with the following memes, and I would like to thank their hostesses for allowing us to participate:
While I'm late to the party, I'm going over to visit The Tablescaper and her group for Seasonal Sundays HERE
Then I'm going to see Smiling Sally and the blue ladies for Blue Monday HERE.
Next, I'm going to visit Susan and company for Tablescape Thursday HERE.
And finally, I put in a pop of pink so I can go visit Beverly and the pinkies for Pink Saturday HERE
The main thing I want to do this week is to visit YOU and see what is going on in your world. Thanks so much for being such a special part of mine and for visiting me here!
Oh, and we're preparing to actually celebrate Christmas in February. So this week, I'm decorating our actual residence. I'm SERIOUS. I'm really going to do set the tables, haul out the stockings, and have our friends and godchildren over for a celebration! We never had Christmas because I was sick, so I'm bound and determined to do it. I'll share the details later. LOL! Here's a sneak peek of the kiddie table...
Warmly,
Mrs. Magpie :-)
Where I Found It:
Christmas Accent Plates: Nantucket by Wedgwood
Red Plates: Home Goods (summer clearance)
White Chargers: I've had these for a number of years
Woven Chargers: Marshall's
Red Plaid Runners: Marshall's (two were made from one Christmas table cloth which figures to about $7 each)
Red Napkins: Target
Red and Green Napkin Rings: Bed, Bath, and Beyond (they had some cute ones this year)
Goblets: Target
Flatware: Ross (but you can sometimes find similar bamboo-handled flatware in the Horchow and Neiman Marcus catalogs)
Centerpiece Cake Stands: Garden Club Members
Fruit and Vegetables: Publix and Garden Club Members' Yards
