Tag Archives: Tablescape Thursday

Wedding Decor…

We were pleased with the flowers and how the table scapes turned out for the wedding.

One of the amazing things about Katie and Andrew’s wedding day was that we had sunshine and dry skies. We did not have one drop of rain fall on us all day and into the evening. God kissed our day with sunshine and we were surprised and grateful! The forecast was for a gloomy rainy day…

The head table had chargers with the the USMC Eagle Globe and Anchor symbol.

We chose to have the family service which meant everyone could sit and relax as the platters of food were served and passed around the tables.

There was enough food for everyone to try both the salmon and the steak. The venue donates the leftover food to a local shelter.

I mentioned before that Katie painted the cake toppers with the right ribbons and emblems on her Marine!

You might be seeing some repeats on photos the rest of the week as my sister Lana just sent me her photos from the wedding.

We had sunshine and a dry day here in the Seattle area on Monday. I zoomed around town to make some returns and to shop for a couple more weddings coming up for us. We have a wedding to attend in April here in Washington and in May we fly down to Southern California for my nephew’s wedding. I found a dress that will work for both weddings. I returned those beautiful silver blingy shoes to Nordstrom today because they killed my feet at Katie and Andrew’s wedding. OUCH! I love dealing with Nordstroms!

Hope your week is going well. OH and before I leave I posted my Dear’s amazing Tomato Rice Soup on Mennonite Girls Can Cook today.

I decided to link this post to Susan’s Tablescape Thursday.

Hillwood Dining Room and Breakfast Room

During a recent trip to Washington D.C. I was able to spend some time at Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens. This is the home of the late Marjorie Merriweather Post.  She was C.W. Post’s only child and sole heiress of the Postum Cereal Company which later became General Foods Corporation. The property is well worth a visit if you ever find yourself a tourist in Washington D.C.

The Dining Room features authentic French decor, including oak paneling recovered from an eighteenth-century Parisian home. Two of the room’s highlights are not, however, French: four large Dutch paintings of hunting scenes and a spectacular Italian table designed in 1927 for Mar-a-Lago, Mrs. Post’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, and requested in her will to be brought to Hillwood. When its six leaves are in place, it can seat more than thirty people.

Today, table settings in the Dining Room and adjacent Breakfast Room are rotated with selections of porcelain, glass, and flatware from French and Russian services.

The design of the Breakfast Room recalls the breakfast room in Mrs. Post’s New York City apartment that was built in the 1920’s. The bronze metal work is from the New York apartment, also. The gilt bronze and green glass chandelier comes from Catherine Palace, one of Catherine the Great’s favorite residences outside St. Petersburg.

I decided to include the kitchen and pantry in my post so you could see where the wonderful meals were prepared and where a lot of the dishware was stored.

Do any of you have a silver safe in your pantry? Since Mrs. Post’s death in 1973 no meals have been prepared in the kitchen. She requested it be retired.

I’ll close with this view from one of the pantry windows.

Please visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for more tablescapes.

Click on gardens and Russian treasures to see more of my posts on Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens. Later next week I’ll also post about the Russian Icon collection Mrs. Post acquired and my favorite painting in her home from 1883, A Boyar Wedding Feast.

Easter Was Glorious!

What a lovely Easter Day we had here in the Northwest. We started out the day by going to a baptism of two little girls we know. Sisters getting baptized on Easter morning. It was a great event to witness. After that celebration we came home to prepare for our Easter lunch with our DIL’s family and my sister Lana and Steve.

 

Sorry I caught some of you in mid-chew! I realize that when we host an event like this my photo skills go out the window. Too busy with other details. Everyone is busy eating Rack of Lamb, rice with raisins and almonds, and salad with Persian dressing. For dessert we had a Russian Strawberry shortcake made with the Kulich, Seerney Paska and strawberries.

 

Our centerpiece was the Russian Easter Bread with hollow chocolate Matryoshka dolls for each of the ladies to take home and colored Easter eggs. We call our Easter bread Kulich but another popular name for it is Paska.

 

 

Our other traditional Easter treat is this sweet cheese spread that we make from eggs, butter, Farmer’s Cheese, whipping cream and sugar. After you mix it all up you put it in a mold lined with cheese cloth and weight it down and leave it in the refrigerator for a day or two to drain as much liquid as you can out of it. The X and B are for Christ is Risen which looks like this in Russian, Христос Воскрес!

 

 

I was able to use my individual place card vases for each guest which was fun.


 

Katie, Lana, and Laura

 

Sisters flanked by my daughters :0)

The cross was one of my hostess gifts from my DIL’s mother. Thank you Pat! I love it along with my other goodies.

All the dishes are washed and put away but I’m still enjoying the vases filled with the tulips. My brain is in slow motion today but I’m sure to perk up here sometime soon so I can visit everyone’s Easter greeting posts that I missed yesterday.

Looking forward to another great celebration tomorrow. I’ll tell you about it soon.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Tablescape Thursday ~ Yellow & Blue

Welcome to Tablescape Thursday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. The table I’m showing you today is set up in the living room of my home in Washington State.

 

I’m using an off white cloth with a smaller round blue and yellow cloth as a topper. I have always enjoyed blue and yellow together.

 

I used my Chippendale dishes on top of my Mikasa Italian Countryside dishes. Yellow napkins with white rose china napkin rings.

 

I ended up using several of my pewter pieces for the centerpiece instead of the vase with the hydrangeas…

To see more Tablescapes visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.