Olla-Podrida: St. Patrick's Day tablescape

Showing posts with label St. Patrick's Day tablescape. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

St. Patrick’s Day Tablescape

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It’s going to be a socially-distanced party of three for St. Patrick’s Day this year, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be festive. Quite the contrary, as you can see from these photos I went for drama.

Whereas I would normally opt for layered plates in white and green, I decided to go with the boldness of black. Water Hyacinth placemats are topped with Bordallo Pinheiro geranium leaf chargers on top of which are square black plates from Rachael Ray. The square plaid plate on top of that was a local find; the bowl another Bordallo Pinheiro find is their cabbage leaf design. In each bowl is a Guinness Irish Soda Bread Muffin. Each place setting will have its own special vintage postcard reproduction plaque. You can use regular postcards to do the same. You might consider hand writing a recipe from the dinner on the back.

The flatware once belonged to my mother, the pitcher an older, but much loved and often used, design from Fitz and Floyd. The leprechaun salt and pepper shakers are a part of that set, and a real treasure.

The large shamrock wine glasses with the Happy St. Patrick’s Day greeting that turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, are from Pier One. Despite my every effort to follow the care instructions to the letter, i.e. washing them carefully in lukewarm water, by hand, the letters spelling out the greeting were improperly adhered, and most of them floated right off, or into the next letter to create some garbled message of dubious meaning. Grrr. The glass that you see in this picture is complete only because I don’t use it, and haven’t washed it, because it has a chip in the rim. Sigh.

There always has to be a pot of gold somewhere, and each place setting has its own, but instead of the gold-wrapped chocolate coins that I have used in the past, this year I chose the festiveness of green mint M&Ms.

I hope you’re celebrating as well as you are able. But if not, at least treat yourself to a special dinner and toast yourself for how well you’ve done the past year under difficult circumstances

Sláinte.

This post is linked to:

Tablescape Thursday

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Wearing 'o the Green Tablescape

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up on Saturday, and my table is wearing ‘o the green in celebration.

I am a big fan of green and white, and, as a consequence, I thoroughly enjoyed putting this table together.

The Fitz & Floyd pitcher centerpiece belonged to my mother. When, a dozen or so years ago, I started having the St. Patrick’s Day dinner, she passed it on to me. It has become as much of a tradition as the corned beef!

I decided to fill it with flowers this year, instead of my usual pot of shamrocks. That turned out to be a bit of a mistake. This pitcher is huge!

It has a very wide opening, and the sad bunch of flowers that I had picked up at the market needed some serious help, so I filled in with some artificial flowers. I think I pulled it off.

I topped it with a vintage St. Patrick’s Day card from the collection of St. Patrick’s cards that I started a while ago. Isn’t it sweet?

This year, I’m happy to say, I was finally able to locate a pair of leprechaun salt and pepper shakers to match the pitcher! This Fitz and Floyd pattern goes back to the 80s, so they’re not all that easy to find. I’m happy to have this whimsical addition to my table.

The wine glasses are new this year and from Pier 1. I thought they added a bit of sparkle and whimsy to the table, plus they hold a lot of wine!

The napkins with the shamrocks are new as well. I found these, believe it or not, on Amazon. They are nice, large, and quite colorful, not to mention low in price. You can find them here.

The chargers, a gift from a blogger friend, are used more often than any others in my collection. The white plates, “Blanc Amelie” from Versailles, are also among my favorites, because they blend with everything. The raised border gives them a rather elegant look; the mugs are this pattern as well.

Lotus bowls that I generally use for serving Asian food, worked well here as vessels for shamrock cookies.

The lidded soup bowls I have had for about 40 years. They are handy for a variety of foods and make a very special presentation.

If you are celebrating this year with a dinner or gathering, tell me about it, I love to hear what others do!

This post contains affiliate links.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Lunching with Leprechauns

As you know, because I have droned on and on about it for what seems like forever, I am always behind when it comes to preparing for holidays. I don't know why this is, because I am generally not a procrastinator, and tend to be fairly well organized; I guess I'm just in denial that another holiday looms ahead. Who knows, but whatever the case, I did manage to do a special table for St. Patrick's Day. I call it “Lunching with Leprechauns” because I liked the alliteration, but, truth be told, it was dinner.

This table was put together in about 30 minutes. My son, and two adorable grandchildren, were coming for dinner and I decided to make their favorite meal and set a pretty table.

I am always charmed by the fact that my offspring, and grand offspring, appreciate what I do, and don’t hesitate to comment. In fact, they're beginning to expect it, so the pressure is on when it comes to inviting family over for even the most casual of meals.

I bought the leprechaun at Pier 1 early in the season figuring that I would use it in a table setting, and then promptly forgot about it. When it fell out of the pantry and hit me on the head, it served as a reminder that I hadn't set a table yet.

The basket is one that my son had given me, and normally corrals seasonal greenery and a candle in the coffee table vignette. The tissue paper I had found in the closet in my office while in search of something else, the little shamrock plant is an annual tradition for me, and I absolutely love them.

I decided to do something other than just green, as you can see, and I ended up quite liking the combination of the two bold colors.

The placemats (both round and rectangular) are from Pier 1, the cabbage plates are Portugal Majolica, and the dinner plates are the Blanc Amelie pattern from Maison Versailles.

The napkin rings are from Pottery Barn, the napkins are a combination of a dinner napkin that I bought at Pier 1, and an adorable St. Patrick's Day cocktail napkin set that was made for me by my aunt.

The stemware is from Pier 1, and a favorite of mine, particularly during the spring and summer months.

The little St. Patrick's Day treat buckets I picked up at Michael's a number of years ago, and the green popcorn, like the shamrock plant, is an annual tradition.

The little black cauldrons were purchased months ago with the idea that I would use them on Halloween, but they ended up serving well as a little pot of gold. I initially thought I would put foil-covered chocolate coins in the pots, but I really don't like that waxy chocolate, so I decided to use Rollos instead. I love the look, but, be forewarned if you would like to do the same, you will have to buy the big bag of Rollo candies because each one of these little cauldrons held 15 of them!

To finish off the little popcorn buckets I decided to cover a Hershey bar with a reproduction of a St. Patrick's Day vintage postcard. Boys would get a boy postcard, and we girls would get one with a girl on it.

I didn't get this idea until about an hour before they were about to arrive, so quickly printed these out, trimmed them into rectangles, and wrapped them around the Hershey bar before plunging them into the buckets. Considering it didn't take long, I really like the look.

The flatware is what I have been using all winter long because I absolutely love it. I realize that it is kind of wintry, but that doesn't matter to me I like it anyway, and it is really cold here today, so it's still fitting. It came from Cabela’s.

I hope you enjoy St. Patrick's Day no matter what you do; tomorrow I'm making a traditional St. Patrick's Day lunch and taking it to my dad.

This post is linked to:

Happiness is Homemade Sunday

Dishing It & Digging It

Cooking & Crafting with J&J

Amaze Me Monday

Busy Mondays

Art of Homemaking Monday
Make it Pretty Monday

Celebrate Your Story
Homestead Wednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Wine’d Down Wednesday
Tablescape Thursday
Home Sweet Home
Weekend Linky Party
Grace at Home
Foodie Friday & Everything Else
Share Your Style

Simple Saturday Blog Hop

Share It One More Time
A Bouquet of Talent

Monday, March 13, 2017

Get Your IRISH On!

It's time to get your Irish on, and I can help you in that endeavor no matter if you're looking to create a St. Patrick's Day vignette, tablescape, or complete dinner, all the way from its tasty beginning to delicious end. All of the ideas that you need are below, just click on the name beneath the picture and it will take you right to the informative post.