I need to pick up my tree this weekend. I can help but be inspired by this beautiful blue. I do my entire tree in silver and white but love this blue as the perfect accent. What are your colors?
Well, we ate, drank, and were very merry. How about you? We had two of my girlfriends over for Thanksgiving and a few of our other friends popped in throughout the night. Blake was our token man. I think he was feeling the estrogen in the room. Give four women a few glasses of wine and we all become chatty Cathy. One of the things I love about women is we can start and stop and go back to previous conversations. I think Blake tuned out after the first round. LOL! I should note that when you get to the dinner pictures, we were all so hungry that I started to take pictures for the blog and then was like forget it. I didn’t have time to stage it, place it nicely on the table, etc. I just snapped a few but they are totally cheesy. Oh, well! What can I say? We had a blast. Hope you enjoyed your time with family and friends. Did anyone get their tree this weekend? I will get ours this week. Can’t wait for the smell of pine in the house, lighting a fire in the fireplace (In LA it’s called Duraflame) for a little snap, crackle, pop.
Here’s a peak at our Thanksgiving. I ended up adding wicker chairs to the end of the table since we were having a few extra friends over. I also added our Riedel Chardonnay and Cabernet glasses to the table for each course. The table looks a little different.
The table as the sun was setting with with the wicker chairs added.
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My girlfriend Lisa dropped by, while I was prepping for our guests. She brought homemade Bloody Mary’s. I thought what a fun gift to do. She had it all wrapped up including the fixings, all I had to do was pour into glasses. I just happened to buy two large mason jars and thought what a fabulous hostess gift this would make, especially for a brunch. You could prepare fresh Bloody Mary’s (like she did) and put in a quart sized mason jar and tie it with raffia. In a small size jar you could put celery, onions, green tomatoes, or whatever is your favorite sides (you could put a tiny jar of horseradish and Tabasco). Wouldn’t that make a great hostess gift?
APPETIZERS
Artisan Cheeses
Fig and Olive Oil Raincrisp Crackers
Cured Meats
Gourmet Olives, Artichokes, Peppers
Veuve Clicquot Champagne 2007 
SECOND COURSE
Butter Lettuce with Grape Tomatoes, Caramelized Onions, and Homemade Blue Cheese Dressing
Gary Farrell Chardonnay 2007 
MAIN COURSE
Organic Turkey
Green Beans with Shallots, Slivered Almonds and sprinkled with Dried Cranberries
Baby Carrots with Dried Sherry & Italian Parsley
Mashed Potatoes with Chives
Biscuits
Chateau Montelena Cabernet 1995
Nickel & Nickel Cabernet 1997
We had the most beautiful turkey and of course the boyfriend starts cutting it before I could stage it for photos. Life of a blogger learning in progress. Doesn’t he know I have to photo everything? He’s learning. But unfortunately the sliced turkey was not photogenic. HA! HA! My friend Maureen made the mashed potatoes. Can you believe I don’t know how to make mashed potatoes? I normally do roasted potatoes but living in a small house, we don’t have a double oven. Note to self, when you have a “grown up house”, make sure you install a double oven!
Ok you can see my photo skills are going down hill!
DESSERT
Homemade Apple Crisp
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Here’s some photo’s throughout the evening. Here’s Nick doing her wine tasting.
Kirsten, Maureen and Nick.
Me and Kirsten who’s adorable and we love her. My neighbors girlfriend.
Maureen and Nick.
Our token man, Blake. What a trooper.
Maureen had to run home for something and changed because it was cold out. When she came back, we joked that she looked like a construction worker with the black and yellow (or a bumble bee) hence, the reason for hand signals.
Getting Silly. Kirsten and Maureen
Hail, Hail, Hail the gangs all here! OOPS! Except our token male who is taking our picture.
L to R: Me, Kirsten, Maureen, & Nick.
We had a beautiful day! I hope you all did as well.
Now time to prep for Christmas! Ready, Set, DECORATE.
I love Thanksgiving! Blake and I typically don’t go home for Thanksgiving and usually host our friends and/or people that can’t get home to their families. This is the first year that our gathering will be on the smaller side, just four of us. We have two of our friends coming over (normally we have anywhere from eight to twelve people) and I’m looking forward to a more intimate dinner. I’m so excited because it afforded me to be a little more extravagant and creative on my table setting. The last few evenings, I shined the silverware, ironed the napkins, washed the plates and got everything ready so that tomorrow won’t be so stressful. I found these great plates on sale at Sur La Table. They had a green acorn print on them and I thought it would be a little different than the traditional orange, yellow, and burgundy. I used mason jars (it took me five stores to find them) with mixed filler from the grocery store (they matched my plates perfectly) and made my own bouquets. For the tablecloth, I went to Joanne’s Fabrics and bought several yards of burlap and put it over a table cloth to give the table a more rustic feel. I got this great idea for the mixed nuts from a regular blogger I read and I’m having a brain fart right now and can’t remember where I just read it…PLEASE! forgive me? Post to my blog so I can credit you. I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving with your friends and families. I’m thankful for all my new friends and bloggers I have met. Your all so talented and inspiring! See below what I cooked up for the table for tomorrow. I’ll post on Friday what we had for din din! 
Table Setting Items
Tablecloth: Burlap Fabric from Joanne’s Fabric Store
Mixed Nuts: Von’s Grocery Store
Vases: Mason Jars from Michaels
Flowers: Filler from Von’s bought separately and made my own bouquet
Acorn Plates: Sur La Table
Leaf Plates: Pottery Barn
Green Glasses: Home Goods
Chargers: Borrowed from my friend Nick (believe she got them at Cost Plus)
Silverware: Mikasa
French White Steak Knives: Home Goods
~HAPPY THANKSGIVING~
What are you thankful for?
EBay is like a big tag sale online. Sometimes the things I love (furniture) are located out of state and the shipping charges make the purchase too cost prohibitive. Instead, I envy the person that lives close by that can pick it up (especially all the Florida people). It doesn’t stop me from thinking of what I would do with it or how I would fix it up. Unless you have a good imagination, it might be hard to visualize these pieces in a space. Trust me…with a little bit of paint and a whole lot of love (and some accessorizing) any one of these would make a great addition to any space.
I love the idea of this Lucite Shelf as a bar. Imagine the top with a vintage tray with various types of bottles, your barware, and glasses. I would add coffee tables below with a few decorative items. Love this.
If I bought this chandelier, I would paint it a bright color and/or white. I have a similar one in my garage that I bought at a flea market in green (it’s a lot larger).
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While I do like this in a dark blue, I would love this headboard reupholstered in a tan Belgium linen. It has great lines and is classic in design.
If I had play money right now, I would bid on these two mid-century Meissen vases. I find the design quite interesting.
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This bamboo tray is perfect for putting perfume bottles or something decorative in a bathroom or on a coffee table.
I want these bamboo chairs. What a great deal. These would look great with a cool patterned fabric. Perfect for my beach house.
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Do you see theme with all this bamboo? The yellow would look great, but I would likely change the color. These would look great in any space. Use them as nesting tables or sprinkle them around the house as different side tables.
This bed would look fabulous painted a turquoise or a classic white or black. Love the circles on the top.
Can you see the potential? My boyfriend cannot visualize and just thinks I’m adding more “crap” to the garage. LOL!
Sorry I’ve been dormant lately. I’ve been traveling a lot and busy with work and have had a lot going on. Hope you’re all great and getting ready for Thanksgiving. Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time futzing around on EBay I can spend hours searching for various things. I’m always combing EBay for vintage glassware for entertaining, art, decorative pottery, etc. Lately, I’ve been obsessing on blue glassware and anything in little carry cases. Here are some things I think are great:
I love the color combination of this vintage pitcher and ice tea glasses. They also have someone else selling three more of these glasses. rF-enepBMfqOMqjZ!~~_3.JPG)
I love hobnail juice glasses for summer picnics or outdoor gatherings. Serve wine or water in them.
Jeanette Blue Jasperware Glasses
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How cute would these Colony Glasses and Carafe be for my dream house in Napa?
These Libby glasses in a vintage holder would look great on a bar.
Stay tuned for some of my other EBay favorites. What do you like to shop for on EBay? What’s the best deal you ever got?
I’ve been traveling for work lately and finally catching up from being gone. I miss blogging. It’s actually my stress release at the end of a long day. I love dreaming and the imagination. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane. I’m dying to know, what is it that you dream about?
SWEET DREAMS!
