Monday, January 22, 2018

A Tea Time Centerpiece


A number of you commented on my tea centerpiece when I showed you my "curious" table (that you can see here), so here's a closer look.
I have had this three-tiered stand for about 30 years. I bought it at a darling shop called Oak Tree Furniture on Historic Main Street in St. Charles. I mourned for weeks when that shop closed more than a dozen years ago. My mother and I used to visit it often, and when I spied this at the center of one of their lavishly decorated tables, I knew I had to have it. It has served me well over the years, largely holding greenery and grapes. But, lately, I've been using it as not only a centerpiece, but also a part of the meal. If you have one of those very popular galvanized metal three-tiered stands, you might consider this as well. I love it when a centerpiece does double duty.
Consider using it as an appetizer tray. You can showcase some of your favorite dishes, and fill them with fruits, nuts, cubes of cheese, small, hot baked appetizers, and use the lower level for small bottles of wine.
You can also use it as a salad tray, serving people a beautiful bed of freshly torn lettuce, and allowing them to choose their toppers from what you feature on your stand. You can use croutons, nuts, sunflower seeds, dried fruit, bacon crumbles, cubes of ham, shredded cheese, whatever you can dream up, you can put on your tray.
For holidays such as Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, or Christmas, where sweets are always featured, use it as a sweet tray. For Valentine’s Day, you can fill bowls with flowers, conversation hearts, chocolate candies, and heart-shaped cookies. Candy is in abundance at Easter time, so imagine how cute this would look filled with pastel colored vessels overflowing with jellybeans, chocolate eggs, malted milk eggs, or your homemade options.
The tray could be filled with spooky fun for Halloween. Use colors like black, brown, orange, and amber as your vessels, and fill them with all sorts of Halloween candy. The kids and your family will go crazy. At Christmas time, picture greenery, berries, small bowls of Christmas cookies (snowball are particularly popular), holiday candy, anything colorful and delicious. Now, if you don't have a three-tiered tray, my guess is you're going to be running out to buy one. Click below if you don't have one. They are so much fun to play around with.
Mine here is tea themed. It features sugar cubes of white and Demerara sugars, teabags in a variety of flavors, some squares of Ghirardelli chocolate (that taste so good with tea), some almond cookies, bowls to hold the goodies, cups for drinking tea, and a small bottle of spiced rum to warm up the tea as well as the insides of anyone who consumes it.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my tea tray. Let me know what you do with yours if you have one, or what you plan to do with one if it's in your future.


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5 comments:

Jean | DelightfulRepast.com said...

Pattie, I love what you've done with the stand AND that you've had it for so long. I'm new to your blog, just came over from Kathryn's linkup. Looking forward to reading more of your posts tomorrow.

Alycia Nichols said...

Well done, sister! I keep a tiered tray on our kitchen table that is both decorative AND useful. Ramon is all about things serving a utilitarian purpose, I’m all about things being pretty. I love it when we can meet in the middle!

Leanna said...

This is very pretty and appealing. I really like the large three-tiered trays as you can not only decorate with them, they are a useful well to gain some table space.

Nellie's Cozy Place said...

Hi Pattie,
Love your centerpc. - that is a great idea for the kitchen especially.
I like utilitarian and pretty all at the same time......works wonders....
Hope this finds you doing well hon.....Always love your blog background
when I come over.......

Blessings, Nellie

annies home said...

love it for a centerpiece but I am thinking a great deal for the table by my desk as well. So handy and useful thanks for sharing
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