Summer Fun Tablescape

I am participating in Cuisine Kathleen's Farewell To Summer Table Challenge. All summer I have looked at everyone's fun summer posts.  I especially liked and was inspired by Alicia's fun post called Picnic Ants  and I still remembered how much I wanted to copy some Alicia's ideas from her 2012 post called Ants in My Pants Picnic.   I am so happy to have this last chance to post a summer table featuring ANTS!  Homemade jingle bell ants (I got the burns from the hot glue gun to prove it).

I used a tutorial that I saw on a Pinterest pin from Dandelions and Dust Bunnies called Ants . Except for the really bad burn on my left thumb, they were fun and easy to make. I also wanted to make some red gingham ant plates from some material I had found on Ebay a while back.  I laminated the gingham ant material to plain clear square glass dinner plates.

Enough talk - on with the pictures.

 There are ants walking on wooden watermelon slices from a garage sale (I think)

 There are watermelon slices and lanterns acting as the centerpiece down the middle of the table.

The watermelon slices came from a garage sale for 25 cents each.

 Watermelon salt and pepper shakers.

 The lanterns came from Marc's last winter.

 The napkins were bought at Pat Catan's Craft Store for one dollar each.

 The flatware came from Marc's last year. $2.99 for a 20 piece set.

 The black and white gingham check tablecloth was made from material found at Goodwill.

 The desert plate and the bean bowl are from Marc's, three for one dollar.

I originally had three square lanterns with lit candles on the table.  They looked cute but I like the watermelon slices better.

 

 In this picture you can see the square lantern candle holders.

I will be sharing my extra set of Sunny Days serve ware with Laurie Ritchey.  Thank you to everyone that visited my first anniversary blog posting.  

                                                

I will be linking to:

Cuisine Kathleen's Farewell to Summer Table Challenge

Susan's Tablescape Thursday

Kathe's You're Gonna Love It Tuesday

Dawn's History and Home Link Party 

Nautical Tablescape With Lighthouses

Summer seems to have flown by this year and I certainly am not ready for Fall yet.  My mindset is still with the summer breezes wafting by me as I sit on the patio and watch the hummingbirds at the feeders and admiring the August beauty of the flower beds.  We only have one baby hummingbird this year.  It's a boy,  the ruby mottling has already started around his throat.  In a week or two the Jewel weed will start to bloom and the parent hummingbirds will start their journey south and Junior will follow a few short weeks later.  To me, that is when summer ends.  There have been some wonderful lighthouse tablescapes over the summer.  I loved each and everyone of them.  I so wanted to do one myself but had been lacking items to make a pretty tablescape.  The items that I needed to complete a lighthouse tablescape kind of fell into place over the last couple of weeks of thrift shopping.  The sailboat glasses were the a thrift store find last year,   I had found a set of Lighthouse Melamine plates at the Salvation Army Family Store sometime over the winter. There were twelve of them taped together for four dollars.  The plates and the glasses were great,  but it takes more that that to create a tablescape.

As luck would have it I found the some lovely nautical elements to enhance this table setting while out thrifting  and garage sale-ing over the last couple of weeks. Several weeks ago I found a wire birdcage lighthouse that was finished in oil rubbed bronze.  Cute, but not quite what I wanted.  I spray painted it in Rust-oleum's Seaside color and then lightly sprayed it down with a bit of Heirloom white to brighten it up.

I did end up buying some crushed seashells pieces and some tumbled blue glass at Pat Catan's, a local craft store whose regular prices are the same or less than the big chain stores "sale" prices.  

The blue glass reminds me of the color of the ocean water on the plates and the crushed shells remind me of the rocky shore that lighthouses are built on.  Dear sweet hubby chose the napkins (also from Goodwill) and I modified the Double Sails napkin folding technique that I saw at Susan's Between Naps on the Porch  tutorial  you can find it here.  Because the hems were thick on my napkins I folded both sides to the middle instead of to one side and proceeded with Susan's directions.  They kind of look like a sailor's hat.

I found the the sailboat glasses at The Goodwill near where I work.  Glasses are fifty cents each at the Goodwill,  less whatever discount I am using (usually 10 or 20 percent).

  The lighthouse candlesticks, the sailboats, shells, and the captain are all thrifted.

The lighthouse in the lighthouse and the lighthouse salt and pepper shakers were bought at the Volunteers of America on the last Tuesday of the month in July.  On the last Tuesday of each month everything is half price.  Luckily I was able to go back to part time for a couple of weeks and was able to be there when they opened and made off with all of the lighthouse decor (which had just showed up on the shelves the night before)

More pictures.

.The black eyed Susan's are in full bloom around the patio, here are a few pictures, notice how the morning glories have managed to sneak into the other flower beds.

August 18th will be the first anniversary of my blog "Plum Creek Place".  I would like to share an anniversary present with someone out there that would be interested in some lovely late Summer/fall table decor.  I had bought a set of Park Design Sunny Day salt and Pepper shakers and a Sunny Day divided server plus the Sunny Day dip Bowl with Spreader and Some Fall Pattern Raymond Waites napkins for myself  (from my favorite store Marc's).  I was so pleased with them that I went back and bought an extra of each of those items and thought it would be nice to share the extra set with someone else.

Park Design Sunny Day Divided Server and S&P shakers.

Raymond Waites Napkins

Park Design Sunny Day Dip Bowl With Spreader

Brand new and ready for a home.

Of course I can only share with one person.  I would be very happy if that person were you.  If you are a follower and have a shipping address in the lower 48 states of the U.S.A.,  and you would like to be the person I share this extra set of selected of Fall items with,  just stop and leave a comment on this post by August 26th.  I will announce whose comment was chosen at random to share my lovely extra set of Fall items with when I post again on August 27th. 

********* Laurie Ritchie's name was drawn by my friend Gloria at work to be the winner **********

I am participating at Cuisine Kathleen's  Farewell to Summer Table challenge.
Until then Remember what Kathleen said in her last post about the Official Halfway Mark of Summer.
"IT AINT FALL Y'ALL"  - Keep Summering on

But

Until then,  You know what I say - Thrift on Ladies, Thrift on.

 Sharing at the following Link Parties:

Dawn's History and Home Link Party

Susan's Tablescape Thursday

Tammy's Share it one more time

Kathryn's Anything Blue Friday 

Tropical Fish Tablescape

Sometimes there is a journey involved with creating a tablescape.  Somehow an idea sparks and the journey begins.  Maybe it was the colorful napkins I found several months ago when I was out thrifting.  The bright green napkin bordered in yellow and orange could have inspired any number of summer tablescapes. Or maybe it was the happy tropical looking Department 56 Mirage salad plates that I found a few weeks later, either way the search was on for all things tropical suitable for a tablescape.  Things just start to fall into place.

Mirage salad plates.

 

The colorful Gibson striped plates were already in my stash of summer plates waiting to be used for a happy colorful summer table.

 The tropical fish tumblers managed to jump into my cart at the VOA a week or so later.

 Various tropical fish and seashells seemed to be everywhere over the last week or two.

 A pelican even managed to hop into the shopping cart even though I kept telling him that I was making a tropical fish tablescape NOT a beach tablescape.  He didn't listen.

I even made a "mock" aquarium out of an old rectangular vase that I had in my stash of vases.  I was going to use this aquarium as a centerpiece before I found the flip-flops.

 

There were tropical fish suckers at the Deals Dollar Store with colorful stripes that looked perfect in my mock tropical aquarium.  Even the "new in a sealed package" aquarium plants showed up on the shelf at the Goodwill Store last week. Darned if they didn't hope into my cart too!  Along with the cute little pair of flip-flop votive candle holders.

Little things that had been packed in storage boxes have been brought out to brighten the summer decor in the windows.  It was good to see these old friends again.

In the end the tablescape evolved into the table pictured below.  

The flatware was purchased new from the HomeGoods store for $12.99 for the 20 piece set with a silverware caddy.

The place mats are a thrift store find as are the dinner plates,  salad plates,  glasses,  and napkins.

The lanterns and table scatter came from Marc's.  The lanterns were a beachy white color that I painted  turquoise several years back.

The table cover is a beach mat that was bought at Big Lots at 90% off many years ago. It fit the table perfectly!

See the three little fishes around the flip-flops below,  they arrived in the mail last week.  My friend JoAnn had found them while she was out thrifting and sent them to me for my tablescape.  Having a tablescape buddy is the best!!!  Don't these cute little blue and pink striped fish look great with the flip-flops?

I spent several days arranging and rearranging this table.  I have a definite tendency to overdo when I tablescape. So I started with a lot of things that were removed one item at a time until I was happy with the end result.  In this dry run picture taken the night before the you can see the candle holders that I made from tall champagne glasses,  a little vase filler,  and the lollipop fish suckers. 

 There were light houses and coral posed next to the lanterns.

More colorful tropical fish and a lot more scatter had been placed around the table.

 Looks a bit cluttered doesn't it?  I removed and replaced a little at a time.

And ended up with a simpler and less cluttered table.

Many of the unused items were placed on the shelves (cluttering them up) with the other beach and nautical stuff that I have collected over the years.

As always - thrift on ladies, thrift on.

These are the parties I like to link to:

Dawn's History and Home Link Party        

The Scoop - Visiting from Debbie's Confessions of a Plate Addict        

 

Susan's Tablescape Thursday                                                             

Tammy's Share It One More Time Party     

Christine's Table It Link Party

Kathe's You're Gonna Love It Tuesday           

Kathryn's Anything Blue Friday