Thanksgiving tablescapes to charm guests
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Don’t forget to add personal touches
Once you’ve set your guest list and determined the menu, setting your Thanksgiving table may be the most important task of the day. After all, a tablescape is like the pumpkin spice to a latte.
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Just ask lifestyle and design expert Sarah Gunn. She threw traditional Thanksgiving colours out the window and created a vintage/coastal-inspired pastel tablescape for the Fall Home Show, held last weekend at the Enercare Centre at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto.
“There’s lots of inspiration for colour at this time of year. If reds, oranges and greens are your thing, then use them to inspire your tablescape. I’m a pastel person,” she says. “You need a source of inspiration. Gorgeous floral salad plates were my starting point, but a beautiful tablecloth or centrepiece may dictate the design of your table.”
Gunn’s Home Show tablescape featured a soft pink tablecloth and vintage/coastal table settings with rattan chargers, vintage-inspired dishes mixed with gold and an oversized pink floral centrepiece in the middle of the table that introduced a hint of orange.
When creating a tablescape, she suggests taking cues from your home décor. “Find a source of inspiration, such as your dinnerware or tablecloth. It’s just like designing a room. You have one piece of inspiration – usually textiles. Pull everything from that so it feels cohesive.”
She also suggests having one set of dinnerware that you can mix and match for each holiday, introducing different elements to make it feel fresh. “I don’t recommend buying an entire new set of everything for every holiday – that’s just not environmentally or budget friendly.”
When creating your tablescape, Gunn also recommends experimenting with different things from around the house. A knit blanket in a trendy colour and/or pattern, for instance, adds texture and an “unexpected fun element” to the table.
While Gunn isn’t a big follower of trends, if something is on trend right now that you really love – such as this season’s velvet pumpkins in rich jewel tones and pinks – she recommends scooping them up because you don’t know when you’ll find them again.
When choosing or designing a centrepiece, be sure to keep it low enough to allow conversation across the table. If your table is long and rectangular, consider a statement centrepiece in the middle of the table and sprinkle some candles in colours that pull from the centrepiece or some small vases of flowers down the table.
“I love a little personal detail in every tablescape and Thanksgiving is such a great opportunity to add a bit of personality,” she says. “Little conversation starter cards are great to have at each place setting, especially at Thanksgiving where people can talk about something they’re grateful for or favourite memories.”
Another idea is to place a gift at every place setting, such as miniature glass jars filled with mini cookies in lieu of place cards. Yet another idea is to have the kids create small Thanksgiving ornaments, such as painted mini pumpkins, for each place setting. “The personal touches for the people gathered at the table are what’s special about a tablescape,” says Gunn.
Decorating for Halloween
Artist, designer and TV personality Steve Sabados admits he goes “absolutely overboard” when it comes to Halloween and loves “spooky, spooky and scary, scary.”
He typically makes his own props in his studio, which he likens to a “nightmare factory” where you’re sure to find a plethora of Styrofoam heads and wigs.
It’s no surprise, then, that the Halloween tablescape he created at last weekend’s Fall Home Show was very theatrical. His theme was matte black with the notable exception of seven-foot artificial floral arrangements with hundreds of orange monarch butterflies flying out of them.
“I wanted to make it look like it was from an old manor – like a dinner party frozen in time,” Sabados says. His tablescape was “jam packed with décor” – though no skulls or crossbones – and featured velvet and taffeta tablecloths and napkins and black lacquered chairs.
When decorating your house for Halloween, Sabados recommends choosing a theme but cautions against an “explosion” of décor because it will make your home appear “like an old unkept mansion.”
Rather, set up areas of interest, such as the front entryway, dining room table and mantle, with perhaps a few skull pillows on the sofa. Sabados also cautions against draping the ‘cobwebs’ that you can pick up from the dollar store in bushes and trees because birds and wildlife can get caught in them.
When it comes to trends, neon pinks, fuchsias and yellows reminiscent of the Day of the Dead in Mexico is “super fun and really festive.” Another trend is an all-white Halloween, “which has a lightness to it,” he says.
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