Last week's "Thank you" brunch looked beautiful, tasted great, and was, more importantly, easy and inexpensive. I would like to show you how setting a beautiful and festive table is easy, even on a budget!
scrimpyPlace settings (These are by no means classic place settings, I just use what I have and what looks good to me!):
- I purchased 4 cotton napkins at IKEA. This is my favorite way to spice up a table setting! This site is great for learning how to fold napkins. For this particular brunch, I used the "bird of paradise", but I also really love the "diamond fold". It's a great touch for a few reasons. One being that people have no clue how you folded them, and it makes it seem like you went through a lot of trouble and/or are extremely talented. Another reason being that it's rare nowadays to eat a meal using a cloth napkin, and I think it makes the meal seem more special.
- I like to use white plates (the only plates I have...we don't have much room for all sorts of plates). I place a small plate on top of the meal plate, they are so cute and cost $1.25 each at Crate and Barrel (I used to have beautiful art-deco looking plates ($1.25/each) at TJMaxx...but I moved home for a while, and they disappeared into the black hole that is my parents' home). This plate can be used for any little biscuits, cookies, or fruit you have set out. You can then clear it and serve the meal on the plate below.
- If serving a "buffet" like brunch, with several appetizers and "pickies" then you could easily fill the whole table with food, and stack some small plates and folded cloth napkins for everyone to grab as they go.
- Since I was just serving eggs, I put one dinner fork on the right side of each plate, and a tall water glass on the left hand side of the plate. It's not shown in the picture, (because I didn't really serve those smoothies, I just put them in the brunch menu for all of you, because it's a nice touch...we happened to have enough to eat!) but if you plan to serve smoothies, I would place a small juice glass to diagonally in front of the water glass. If you are serving a dessert course, you would place a small spoon horizontally at the top of the plate.
- I served banana bread muffins at the end of the meal as a type of dessert, on a little coffee-bean platter I bought on sale at Starbuck's for, like, $5.
- There's great serving pieces at TJMaxx in downtown crossing. You can get some nice plates there that are great to have in your cabinet. You never know when you're going to need to put something on a nice platter, and when you have one, it's so fun to just break it out and use it! Other ideas for inexpensive serving pieces include Target (even though that store reallllly isn't that inexpensive), Filene's on Boylston (I believe they have home goods), and Crate and Barrel (their white porcelain is well priced, and their items stand up to use very well). It's great to get funky, seasonal, or classic pieces and mix and match them. You can dress up an cheap meal very easily with sweet serving pieces.
- At TJMaxx, around Thanksgiving time, I purchased 2 bowls that look like little heads of lettuce. They're white porcelain, and they were $2.99/each. I like to keep extra cloth napkins on hand to line these bowls, which I usually fill with biscuits or rolls. You can find beautiful bowls (these are Mikasa) for a very good price and mix and match them for a beautiful table setting!
- I also got a tall china creamer that I used for Thanksgiving gravy, so I filled that with milk for the coffee.
- I purchased a glass carafe at Crate and Barrel on sale for $2.95. I had it filled with fake flowers in the baby's room (sounds tacky but really wasn't...trust me), but I have had it in the cabinet for a while, with the idea it would be a vase. But, I filled it with ice water and it was a really beautiful touch on the table. It would be really festive to fill it with water and throw some lemon slices, raspberries, mint leaves, or cucumbers in it! It was elegant to be able to fill the glasses with cold water from the carafe, not just stick them in the sink under the Brita (you know!?).
- A cheery centerpiece is deceptively easy to create, even in a small space. We have a tall, clear glass vase (that I got gratis when I had Dylan! Thanks Megan!) that I fill with seasonal things. In winter, it's pinecones and Christmas bulbs. In the late winter, I like to do oranges, lemons, or fake flowers for cheer. In the spring, I think I would do some pretty fruit again, or maybe some tree branches (?). In the fall I fill it with apples, and for a really cool touch, I fill it with water (looks sooo cool, but if you keep it with water in it for longer than a day I'd plan to throw the fruit out...this is actually a great thing to do using dirt cheap Haymarket fruit...it's there in the pic, but I don't know how well you can see it).
- This picture (above) is from Thanksgiving. I actually stuck white tapers in leftover Pelligrino bottles, and spray painted bruised pears (that I had to throw out anyway) white and tied a little name tag to them. This is a really cheap, great touch, and you can use any fruit you'd like! Just go down to haymarket and buy 4 pears for $1.00, and spray paint them (which will cost you, like, $4...but you will have the spray paint for future use).
- I also got my hands on 7 votives ($.50 each) from Crate and Barrel during their post-holiday sale. They are clear with gold stars on them, and I planned to use them in my gold and pink Valentine's table...but I got to use them even sooner than I thought, for my brunch! Daytime candlelight is novel and unexpected!
So, the point is, be on the look out for sales on versatile serving pieces that you love. I really get a kick out of being able to open up the cabinet, and pull out a few nice things (that are so nice, and were so cheap) that I get to use over and over again. You can get ridiculous deals on really nice things. If you're at TJMaxx though, make sure you quadruple check for any chips or cracks! I hate getting home and realize something is chipped. These deals help you create a beautiful and festive table time and time again, for a very small cost. A little creativity and forethought goes a long way. Your guests are sure to notice that you put in the extra effort, but will probably think you went through much more trouble and expense than you did!
What are your favorite frugal centerpiece ideas? Any ideas on what else I can put in my vase???
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