Thanksgiving Prep

Today's Agenda:  Making a tart + decorating for tomorrow!

This year's Thanksgiving theme went a little off the grid I readily admit but after the year we have had I just wanted to have fun with things and keep it light.  When I was in New York last month I made it to the Marimekko shop that is inside the Crate and Barrel in Soho.  It was amazing!  So fun to see all of the patterns come to life!  I'm obsessed with napkins and so my inspiration for this year's Thanksgiving table started with these that I found at the Marimekko shop:

I then found these wonderful Chilewich lace runners at CB2 that remind me of a lace shawl my Italian great-grandmother had...

clearly, I needed a reason to try this out and so they were added to the table...


I decided I needed to get a theme together quick otherwise random things I really liked would just end up on the table...that's when the an urban Thanksgiving theme was born with blues, greens, white and blacks.  Last year's was more of a vintage Thanksgiving so I was excited to play with some different elements.

To continue the random elements I was cobbling together I found these placemats @ CB2 (paper -- husband and dad will be so happy @ clean up time!):

and her @ Marshalls for $19.99!:

I've picked up some flowers -- green berries, purple stalky things and greenery -- from Whole Foods (I am constantly amazed at their consistently great selection -- quality, variety and pricewise) and just grabbed a bunch of vases from the closet and played with them.

Now to add the rest!  I'll post the final result tomorrow -- in the meantime I'm pulling some ideas from my inspiration for this year's tablesetting...

 {from Apartment Therapy}

{from Ohdeedoh via Christiane Lemieux of DwellStudio}

I also grabbed some kraft paper and want to make a menu with kraft paper and for a blind wine tasting to warm us up for dinner wrap the wine bottles with the kraft paper.  Also have to plan for our Thanksgiving activity -- last year, I made placecards and everyone had to write inside what they were thankful for.  Then we passed them around, each person read the one they got out loud and we had to guess who it was!  It was cheesy and fun -- just like how I like the holidays :) This year I'm going to lay out the kraft paper on our kitchen island after dinner and give everyone a crayon and go to town writing what they are thankful for and their "bucket list" for 2011 -- am excited! 

Now off to finish up the menu for tomorrow...