Back in the summer, my mom gave me a set of Christmas dishes. I put them in the basement, and I waited patiently for December to come so I could break them out and use them. And use them we did….but I never got around to setting a Christmas table and blogging about it, because my dining room was still half blue and half white at that point, and life was busy, and all that. So when the opportunity to take part in the winter themed Apres-Ski Tablescape Hop–hosted by the fabulous Ariel at PMQforTwo–arose, I pulled those dishes back out and looked them over….and decided that they are not actually Christmas dishes so much as winter dishes. They have a snowy scene with people skating on a frozen river; you don’t have to stop skating on a frozen river after Christmas! I imagine (I have to imagine, because I don’t live somewhere where rivers get frozen enough to skate on) the river is even more likely to be frozen in January than in December. I wasn’t too late to blog about my dishes! So I started humming Joni Mitchell’s “River” and set to work. The dishes are Golden Rabbit enamelware, btw, but I can’t find this particular pattern for sale anywhere online.
There are a lot of other great bloggers sharing their winter decorating this week, so make sure to take the time to check them out when you finish here!
Let me be totally honest: one of the reasons I wanted to sign up for this blog hop was to give me a nudge to make progress on my dining room.
I’ll be talking more about the dining room (a lot more!) in the coming weeks. It’s not finished yet, but the painting is done (it’s Benjamin Moore’s White Dove), the new light fixture (affiliate link) is up, and we just hung the vintage bison tapestry that I got from my blogging buddy Cassie Bustamante.
So I had a suitable backdrop for this simple, use what you’ve got, winter woodland animals (and also penguins) table. I wanted to use the need to write this post as an excuse to buy something new at Target, but by the time I made it there to look, everything was looking very spring already. Alas. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of woodland themed tableware around here. And brass animals.
That whitewashed box was one of Dave’s first woodworking projects, and I still love it. The dining room has changed a lot since we first made it, but it works with pretty much any style. As do brass candlesticks, of course.
As you can see, my decorating philosophy was basically, “you can never put too many animals on the table.” My cats subscribe to the same philosophy, incidentally. The penguins are outliers. They are not woodland animals, because there are no woodlands in Antartica. But they’re adorable.
I clipped some Leyland Cypress branches and stuck them in this little vintage planter:
I even folded the napkins up into fancy little pockets for the silverware! I think I’m going to do that all the time now; it was very satisfying.
And now lets’s step back and look at my all the way painted dining room one more time, shall we? (sorry to get so excited about it; it’s just that it had one and a half white walls and two and a half blue walls for weeks and weeks. We sort of misjudged how much we could accomplish before Christmas).
Maybe you would like to pin this?
Now it’s time to go see what the others are up to! There are posts going live through Thursday, so make sure you circle back throughout the week.
Monday
Woman in Real Life
Jenna Kate At Home
Cribbs Style
Tuesday
Boxy Colonial
Pink Peppermint Design
Orchard Hill Farm & Home
Houseful of Handmade
Red Cottage Chronicles
Wednesday
Our Crafty Mom
From House to Home
Dixie Delights
Jaime Costiglio
Up to Date Interiors
Thursday
PMQ for two
T Moore Home
House By The Bay Design
This Is Simplicite
Love your winter dishes! So pretty.
Thank you!
You are absolutely right! The rivers will be more frozen now. It is fuh-reezing here, north of Toronto! You can barely step out the door at the moment though, so skating wouldn’t be an option for me. haha Anyway, your dining room looks lovely! And the dishes are beautiful! And who wouldn’t love the little animals?
I’d love to get a little snow here this winter, but I can do without cold enough to freeze rivers solid 🙂
The moody colors are so pretty! Totally agree on the animals and I love Cassie too. Beautiful job on your winter table and dining room!
Thanks so much, Kathy!
i love this, gretchen! all those animals make me happy and the tapestry is so perfect in there!
Thank you! I love the tapestry–I’d been thinking about it for YEARS, so I can’t believe it’s finally in my house 🙂
Og em gee that looks so great Gretchen. I love it all but esp. Those plates are so beautiful. I also don’t think we talked nearly enough about those pengiuns. So adorable. A thrift find?
Thanks so much, Katja! The penguins were a present from Gus a few years ago….I can’t remember where they came from, sadly.
Your dining room turned out so good! Great job!
Thank you!
You know I love white, so I love the new dining room! I love the bison tapestry, too. Of course you are right that you can never have too many animals on the table, and I might have to make me some penguins.
Aren’t the penguins great? If I remember right, Gus got them for me for Christmas a few years ago.
I adore your woodland theme and those dishes are gorgeous! 🙂
Thank you!
I absolutely love that new light fixture, and the bison wall tapestry. Mixed in with the woodland creatures it feels perfectly wintery! Thanks for joining
Thank you, Ariel! And thanks so much for hosting!
Loving your tablescape! The dishware is so pretty and fab!
Thanks! It’s going to be sad to put it away until next year!
This is such a fun table! I love the whimsical animals and those dishes are amazing.
Thank you!!
Love all of those cute little critters! Such a fun table!
Thanks, Tammy!
This is fantastic! I love all the woodsy critters!
Thanks, Teri!
Oh my gosh how did I miss that you have Cassie’s vintage bison tapestry now?!? I love it and your table setting! Those plates!!!