Weekend in Review

Taking advantage of the overcast skies by embracing the changing cloudscape: rain, no rain; bursts of sunrays through puffy thunderheads inspired me to brighten up the dining room with winter's citrus bounty. This weekend I set our table for the family with a bright yellow and purple toile tablecloth and took lemons off our trees in the backyard and put them on Aunt Ruby's old pressed glass cake plate and covered them with a bell jar from the garden. Using the simple starfish from a decorating accent I made this summer, I placed them on top of the toile napkin on a set of Bobby's unique dessert dishes I wanted to use as salad plates.

This all set the stage for a rejuvenating look that brightened the eyes of the family, as the needed rain poured down outside. The kitties always help me by moving the tablecloth into the right position. If you don't have the tablecloth you want, go to the fabric store and get some fabulous print or color and use a big swath on your table. It doesn't have to fit; if it is too small for your big table, crinkle it up and use it as an accent going the width of the table, not the length and let the extra length fall on each side of the width. Add accent colored napkins unfolded as your placemats on "the diamond" instead of squared on the table. Little things mean a lot in this case. Add tiny vases filled with leaves, herbs, flowers for miniature bouqets in the vases at each place setting.