Christmas Village Copycat Tablescape

Cuisine Katleen has called for another copycat format for her December tenth, 2014 tablescape challenge.  I was torn about what table I would like to copy, but not for long.  One tablescape in my Pinterest boards kept coming up to be repinned over and over again.  It was a table that I simply adored. I have attempted to copy  Susan's Dept. 56 Christmas Table Setting  that she had posted on December 3rd, 2009.  I also used a touch of her tablescaping style and whimsey from her Christmas Setting with Dept 56 Churches  that was posted on December 2nd, 2010.  I then took this tablescape the extra mile (what the heck I was already a day late) and applied Susan's setting suggestions from her Tartan Dishware: Mix and Match Patterns posted on November 6th of this year to create several different looks for my version of a Christmas Village tablescape.  Let me start by saying that I used Christmas houses from the Norman Rockwell series purchased from JoAnn's back in the 1990's with the exception of one Dept. 56 house that my husband bought me for Christmas in the late nineties.  Susan's table in the following picture shows her beautiful houses and lovely Lenox Holiday pattern plates. Red napkins and Waterford wine hocks with crystal champagne flutes, and a crystal iced beverage glass by Waterford. 



Simply beautiful isn't it?  I love the height of the champagne flute relative to the crimson red hock and the iced ted glass. They look so classy together.  I truly tried to locate the Lenox Holiday plates but just could not find any at a reasonable price. For those of you that know me' you will understand what I am saying when I say "you don't see those in the Goodwill store everyday"!!  I found three place settings in my stash (thrifted) but not nearly enough.  I debated on whether to use my Lenox Golden Wreath pattern (12 place settings) purchased from the Goodwill Auction several years ago or  a newer pattern of Lenox pattern bought after Christmas last year.  But I wanted the look of the place settings to stay as true as possible to the look of Susan's table - and this is what I came up with.

 I had eight complete place settings of this Gibson Holiday pattern in my stash and I thought it provided the essence of the look I wanted. The plain white reticulated charger plates were similar to the look of Susan's beautiful charger plates (I swoon whenever I see Susans pierced chargers).   Red pressed glass wine glasses provided the color I wanted,  the Longchamp tall iced tea glass provided the sparkle I needed for the overall look. I had six matching crystal champagne flutes and added two (taller) from a set of four for the settings at the head of the table. Plain red napkins and a Holly Berry cracker complete my place settings.

I used my Yamazaki Holiday Bouquet flatware.

 Red Berries and gold holly leaves wrap around the top of the handles.

A simple swirl and the balance of the handle is gently rounded and nicely proportioned stainless steel..

















The stemware is all vintage picked up at thrift stores through the years. I did not have the really tall champagne flutes but I will be watching for them in the future when I am out thrifting.

This table took a bit of work.  I  laid out the MDF boards that I use to enlarge my 38 x 67 inch table (the two boards are 24 x 88 for a total width and length of 48x88 with the boards added to the top of the table with a narrow gap between them  to allow the wiring for the village houses to slip between them).  Then I  found a thrifted tablecloth in my stash that would be harmonious with the dish pattern and the Christmas Village scape. I placed the chargers on the table to see what space I would have for the village and placed white foam boards on the table,  arranged the houses,  and drew off the placement of the houses on the white boards.

I used the pink foam boards from Home Depot as a base to raise the village up a bit to be able to see into the village houses. The pink board was cut to the size I had determined earlier. I arranged the houses according to the template I had drawn on the white board making sure that I would have room for the dinnerware. Once the houses were in place I added the the lights to the houses.  I used the 5 light electrical cords to limit the number of wires.  I cut through the foam board at one end of the table near an outlet to conceal the wires.  A small slit was cut into the tablecloth and the wires were placed between the two pieces of MDF (I had left a quarter inch of gap between them when I set up the table). The light cords were plugged into an extension cord taped to the leg of the table.

That is enough of the technical stuff!  This table turned into a real challenge after all of the houses were laid out and the lights were added to the houses.  I could not find my glue gun to secure the street lights to the boards.  After an hour or two of digging through my crafting supplies I found an old glue gun with about an inch of glue left in it.  I glued the lights the best as I could under the circumstance.  I did end up buying a new glue gun today but I will be taking it back.  When I went to glue in more street lights I found out they did not work anyway.  Now, back to last night for now.  I decided I would open my container of Village people (He-He,  get it  " The Village People") and started placing my little citizens around the village.  I had not put up a village since 2003 when we lived in Florida.  The tote that I had at my house contained the VP's that I had used way back in 2003.  All of my other village stuff is still in storage about thirty miles from here in the basement crawl space of the home I rent out. When I opened the case I found out many of my little village people had not survived the move from Florida.  I think the movers must have used that tote for a really large hockey puck.  I lost about seventy percent of my village people.  Oh no!!!!  Well as luck would have it I had found several grab bags of Christmas village people at the VOA last month that were still in bags in the garage.  It took a while to locate them but when I did find them and opened the bags they were in pretty good shape so I used them in this little village scape. Enough stories for now.... On with the pictures folks!!! Some of the pictures were taken at night without the crackers the balance were taken this morning. 

One of my favorite thrift finds this year was this little Road Champ die cast replica of 1956 red Ford  truck - it is perfect for hauling Christmas trees.

 

The icy blue lights in the background were a mistake that has now been rectified.  They didn't look blue when I originally put them there. Oops!

The next morning I took some daytime pictures.

And then I noticed something peculiar in the snow.

Do you see them right there in the snow?

There were more,  they were all the way around the village.  There were fence sections knocked down, there was epsom salt snow on the tablecloth (yuck).

Catzilla had struck and he created this disgusting mess of epsom salt on the table.  In days of yore when I used to put up a village with over a hundred houses my little girl cat Baby would take an occasional stroll down through the park (literally the village park) and knock over a few people as she went. Well Baby passed this year so we know it wasn't her.  The prime suspect was caught a while later when he hoped up on the table again. Don't let their innocent looking little faces fool you.  The one on the right was caught red handed, oops I mean red pawed.

Oreo and our handsome Black Prince

More pictures - less words follow.

And now some pictures of alternate settings.  I used some of the suggestions Susan made in her Mix and Match patterns post.

Alternate setting number one........

 

 Alternate setting number two.

Alternate setting number three.  I just love Tartan Plaid.......

The only thing that I went out and bought for this tablescape was the crackers. Everything else was thrifted or bought off of Ebay.

Thrift on Ladies, Thrift on...........

I will be sharing at:

Susan's Tablescape Thursday

Cuisine Kathleen's December copycat Pinterest Challenge

Christine's Table It Link Party

Marty's Inspire Me Tuesday

Kathe's You're Gonna Love It

What's It Wednesday