Just a note to say.......................

Whether your eating out at a restaurant,

at home with family,

or with friends in their home.......

whether it's turkey or hamburger......

We really have a lot to be thankful for.

Wishing Everyone a

Happy Thanksgiving

A Traditional Thanksgiving Table

Hi! You caught me setting up my Thanksgiving table for Tablescape Thursday over at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ . When it comes to Thanksgiving I'm a
traditionalist. Warn fall colors, vintage tableware, family hand-me-downs, and lots of old-fashioned comfort food. The turkey and gravy, of course, with buttery mashed potatoes, peas with pearl onions, sweet potato casserole, roasted root veggies, jellied cranberry sauce, corn, green beans flavored with ham hock (done the night before and refrigerated to be reheated. It always tastes better the next day) and top it all off with pumpkin pie. Yummmmm! Okay, we're getting sleepy thinking of all that food, back to the tablescape.







I hate to cover the natural wood of our cherry farm table. I layer with a woven table runner topped by my vintage mirror and add 1960-70 Town and Country Living placemats. The little hot pads were hand-knitted by my Mom.





I then took my aluminum lazy-susan and placed my turkey platter( new from Cracker Barrel..great vintage look) on top of it. When turkey is on the platter the lazy-susan makes it easy to turn to the piece you want.















My Amber Glass chargers go on next. They were a great find at the Longest Yard Sale. The vendor was very honest....these are reproductions of an 1800's pattern......she had catalogs to order any pattern available. They were $5 each. I couldn't pass them up, they go perfectly with the 1960's Amber Medallion Goblets given to me by my Mother-in-Law

This is how the table looked so far......

These are my Thanksgiving dishes. I found this 20 piece placesetting at an indoor flea market in Columbus, Ohio for $15.
They are from the 1930-40's. They have no mark so I've never known the name or maker. I have seen individual pieces in blue, so they must've been available in two color selections. I love the different scenes on each piece. My fav is the soup/salad bowl with the pic of the waterfall. It reminds me of a place in Cosby, Tn. (other side of Gatlinberg, Tn.) called 'Valentine's Fall'.

Add the serving pieces..................................

Yes, they are two serving pieces to go with my plascesetting

found at two different antique malls in two different states. Both were $3 each!

This 1930-40 pitcher is the only piece of this pattern I have found so far. I love the brown transferware, but it also has touches of yellow, red and blue. Almost a watercolor effect. It goes great with the turkey platter. I use it to serve the gravy.

This hand-wrought aluminum lid was a find at $1. It has a pea plant motif with a pea pod handle. I purchased an acrylic hobnail bowl at Target for $2 and it's just the right the size to serve a can of peas.

I forget where I found this salt and pepper, but it matched the dishes motif perfectly

This is a 1960-70's, pyrex I think, veggie dish.
A very colonial pattern

Blenco Amber Water Carafe

Pressed Glass Turkey,

another Cracker Barrel
find, for the cranberries

Silver is Onieda, 'Southern Garden' pattern.

Put it all together and here is the table.......................

This silk and dried centerpiece will be on the table til the real centerpiece, the turkey, appears next Thursday.

Thanks for stopping by! I am so thankful for all the new blog friends I have found this past year. Blogland would have been very lonely if not for you and I can't wait to meet the rest of you! I hope you all have a Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving.

Now, let's stop over at Susan's betweennapsontheporch.com and see what everyone else is doing.

Another whirlwind week!!!

Sorry It's been a whole week since I last posted, but you won't believe how busy it's been!

First, these are pics from my Show at the Loveland High School Arts and Craft Expo. We arrived at 6:30A, as did a lot of others as you can see. This is just one gymnasium filling up. On the other side of this wall is another. Outside the entrance is a hall leading to a cafeteria...to my amazement it was all filled up with the

most amazing assortment if arts and crafts I had seen in a long time. There were no two booths alike. I was happy to see two other vendors who used vintage finds as the basis for their designs. One was a jewelry designer, who created brooches, belt buckles, etc, and the other took found kitchen and cooking items and turned them into the cutest holiday arrangements with plush Gingerbread Men. I never did get to see the whole show. There were a lot of attendees. This was the 26Th annual show, so this is one of the oldest school events of its kind. They really have there show together. They made set-up easy and were soooo helpful. A lot of the past vendors said sales were down this year, but reassured me that it is this way all over. I did make a few sales..at least I made my show fees back...but there were a lot of requests for my brochures (I actually ran out)...asking about my custom designs...and when my next show was. I received a lot of good response to my designs.

My booth display was a hit. The folks who put together the show were really happy with the finished area. They were a little leery at first because the space was only 10x10, but as you can see there was plenty of room. They said they had a little problem with measurements so, since I was the first to arrive and the 3rd space, they used my side stanchions as a measurement point. Some vendors questioned at first that I was over the size limit, but a measuring tape solved the question. I had my computer as you can see on the left of the screen. I used it as a banner for my shop name, to process credit cards, and as a source of musical accompaniment. The vendors around me loved that. The event committee hoped other vendors would adapt the idea to their spaces next year creating little shops within the building.

Next weekend..Nov 21st...is the Sycamore High School Craft Show. This one is just as big and almost as old, so I've got my fingers crossed and I should have some other new items to display as well. Hopefully Jim will have some other display pieces completed I can use next week and I found new table skirting in a rich chocolate brown that'll go great with my brown gingham fabric I have.

Now to the second part of my post. We have been busy at the flower shop getting ready for the holidays. This weekend we begin to turn our 1850's rock-lathe house into a Christmas Cottage (we do it slowly since we still have do for Thanksgiving..and it feels so early). I love this part..it's like having a huge doll house to play with.

Over the past weeks we have also been 're-decorating' our website for the shop. http://www.sharonvillehometownflorist.com

We have revamped the whole site (all by ourselves thank you very much..that's why it took a while). Created new pages..recreated old ones... and.....yipppeeee... added a new blog!! that will replace our newsletter. It's called the Flower Press From A&J's...all the budding news for you to use... We are sooo excited. There is a link to the blog on my list to the left of the screen. We hope you can stop by very soon. Don't forget to sign the Guest Book on the home page and leave us a comment on the blog posts.

Well, Id' better close for now. Santa's Elves come by the shop to help us with the holiday cheer-up and are they pushy little guys.

It's November..that must mean craft shows!

Just wanted to pop in to see how everyone is and to invite those of you that may be around the Cincinnati area to the 26th Loveland HS Arts and Craft Expo this Saurday (11/7) from 10a-4p at the Loveland High School at 1 Tiger Trail in Loveland, Ohio. I'm putting the finishing touches on some of my newest creations and loading up the van with display peices. It's gonna be an early morning Saturday getting there to set up, but that's the fun part to me....display. There will be over 200 other vendors at this expo, so, it should be exciting and the items available very diverse. I've decided that I will use my canopy inside since they will put me in the auditorium,
it's a 10x10 square..that really is plenty of room to fill. Jim's fixed me a new center light to use in the ceiling of the canopy to add a little light to the subjects and with the electricity available I may even be able to have some soft music wafting through the display. It seems by creating a little room within the show, shoppers come in rather than walk by looking and they may stay longer to browse and I'll be doing some embroidery too, that always draws people to stop and look. Holy Cow! I'm getting nervous thinking about everything to do between then and now. I better get back to my work. I'll post pics of the show when I get back.
Hope to see ya there....seein a friendly face will help the nerves.