Impromptu Table Centerpiece

What do you do for a centerpiece when you decide at the last minute to invite guests to your house?

It was my daughter's sixteenth birthday party.  We were going bowling (her choice not mine) and then to her favorite restaurant for dinner.  Then at the last minute she said she REALLY, REALLY wanted everyone to come back to our house for cake and games.  So... the first thing was look at the clock, and wonder how I could possibly get the house ready in just a few hours for company.  The first thing to do was vacuum.  Okay, I asked Mr. CH to do it.  The house had not been vacuumed in 4 days, which may not be a big deal, unless you have a collie.  I had a ton of other things to do - make beds, get the leaf for the table, pick up the cake, make homemade lemonade...

When I had about ten minutes left, I realized I did not have a centerpiece for my table.  (I know the teenagers would not notice, but I had some adults coming, so I had to make some effort.)

I grabbed my scissors and went to work on our camellia bush.  There was no way I had time to run to the store for fresh flowers.  After cutting several camellias, I put them in an assortment of crystal pieces on my thrift store silver tray.

Did I mention that our daughter's middle name is Camille?

 Many of these crystal pieces were inherited from my MIL.

I barely had it all done when it was time to pick up my daughter from her play rehearsal at school and head to the bowling place.  (I still had to change clothes too.)

We were running late, but we DID make it to the bowling place, then to my sixteen-year-old's favorite restaurant, and finally back to our house for cake, lemonade, coffee and games.

We had lots of fun, but I was glad to sit down finally.  When someone noticed the fresh flowers and commented on how lovely they looked, I just smiled and brushed the hair out of my face. 


BTW, Happy Birthday to my Baby Girl!!

Touches of Farmhouse French

If you haven't noticed before, our city house does not have the farmhouse look of the ranch.   When I am in the city, I am finding that I miss that casual French Farmhouse style, so I am infusing country style into our city life little by little. 

This is a collection whites and silver things on a vintage feedsack I am using as a table runner.

This is what I did have on my dining room table. That tray got moved to my bedroom, and you can visit here if you like. (I didn't want you to think I get rid of stuff just because I get bored with it where it is.) 

I replaced my heavy brocade table runner with a simple vintage feedsack that I found on eBay.  I love the "G.E." intials on it, although the tray covers that part.

I added a large vintage English ironstone pitcher, also found on Ebay.  (To see more English ironstone, click here.)

I found this little white pitcher at a consignment shop.

The silver tray and pitcher were purchased at a thrift store.  (To see what else I got on this trip to my high-end thrift store, click here.)

 

I'm not sure what this little guy is, but we inherited it from my MIL.  (Update - Thanks to all of you smart readers, I have learned that this is a sugar scuttle.  Thanks for educating me!!)

He came with a little scoop.

This little sugar and creamer and also from my MIL.  The lid to the sugar was missing, so I just stacked them.

What do you do to infuse country style to a room or just refresh it?

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