Decorating the tables for an event in one of our church’s cultural halls is always a bit of a challenge. The cultural hall is a basically a gymnasium, really nothing cultural about it. It is a big huge space! I did my best.
Fortunately our Relief Society (the woman’s organization at church) owns some beautiful to the floor gold tablecloths which we used. They added some nice warmth to the table and room.
My sweet husband climbed up in the attic and pulled down all my Fall decor (which is numerous boxes) so that I could use some of the items.
Last week I was out at a CSA owned by some people at church and I noticed a row of sunflowers out in the field. I asked Carlos what he was going to do with them. When he answered – “cut them down” I quickly volunteered to do it for him.
Free flowers is a good thing. The sunflowers looked perfect on the gold tablecloths. I have a collection of white pitchers so I used those to hold the flowers.
I also had been collecting black candlesticks from my weekly trips to Goodwill. Not all the candlesticks started out black though – but thanks to a little black spray paint they all ended up black. I used the candlesticks to hold various pumpkins and balls from my stash of Fall decor!
Since it was a little too early for real pumpkins and gourds I used my fake stuff to add some color and interest around the flower arrangements.
We had three stations for food – all with the same food on it so we didn’t end up with a bottleneck at the serving table. We also placed a round table in the middle of the tables for water.
I brought a lot of my serving pieces along to help create height on the table. One of my favorite and most used pieces is the 4 tiered serving piece from Costco. I am not sure if they still have it but with the holidays coming they may have something similar. If you see one – buy it! I love mine and use it all the time. Fortunately two of my friends also own one so I borrowed there’s so each serving station had one on it.
I took one of my Fall garlands and just stuffed it inside my tall container.
I also brought along some of my cake plates and other higher serving pieces to add interest and height to the table.
I used my trusty little place card holders with cards I made in my Storybook Creator software to label each of the dishes.
The week before the event I still hadn’t found enough wooden candlesticks for what I needed so I had to get a little creative. I found a small wooden candlestick at Goodwill and a wooden coaster so I created my own display piece. It is amazing what you can do with a little E6000 glue and black spray paint! I just glued the two together…
and then gave it a coat of black spray paint!
Do you have any great tricks for creating fun serving or display pieces?
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