If you are lucky enough to have a husband who looks through his sportsman's catalog ... sees dinnerware ... and buys it for you ... you might have twelve placesettings of this pretty JQ Outdoors ironstone ... like me! We love wildlife ... we enjoy eating wild game ... but we also enjoy watchable wildlife. So ... I have more than one set of dinnerware that features scenes from Mother Nature. This particular set has a reproduction of an original piece by German artist Robert Schmidt. That makes using the dinnerware even more fun. We collect wildlife prints and paintings, so discussion of an artist's work is great dinner conversation!
Here's the placesetting ... complete with a little glare! I love to add pops of color in wintertime tables and I also love a clean look ... especially after all the clutter and excess I use at Christmastime! The lime green charger and bright teal stemmed glass are both deliberate attempts to add that pop!
Some of the special pieces in this setting are the glassess ... mismatched, but that's my style! The gold glasses are a recent TJM purchase .. the blue from a local antique store ... and the clear came from GW! The bread and butter plates ... and knives ... also add an interesting element to the setting. The colored handles on the knives brighten up each place setting. You can see the full set in the following collage. This is actually a set of cheese plates and knives. I bought them years ago ... still in the dusty box ... at the Red Wing Angique Mall ... while visiting Red Wing, Minnesota!
The centerpiece is a combination of several duck decoys. I love boxes and save husband's wooden cigar boxes. They are handy for lots of things and look great in a masculine tablescape! I often extend a composed centeriece out to the place setting. Notice the small ducks at the head of each setting. Be careful doing this, though ... don't let guests assume these little pieces are "favors"!
SIDE NOTE: When Alzheimer's first hit my mother ... she was confused by my tables! She'd see something she liked and put it in her pocket. I just let her do it ... I would take it back later ... or not worry about it. After my parents passed away and we cleaned out their house ... I found all kinds of things that had originally been in a tablescape at my house! Mother had a dresser drawer that she stored "valuables" in. Tucked down in the corner, under some crocheted handkerchieves, I found a little ceramic rabbit that had originally been on an Easter table at my house. It was certainly not valuable or even collectible, but to Mother ... it was meaningful. If you have a loved one with Alzheimer's, don't swet the small stuff. There is plenty to worry about without getting excited over things that don't really matter.
Here's one more look at the dinnerware. The flatware is Sabatier and the yellow/gold flecked handles perfectly match the rim of the plates.
I'm linking to Tablescape Thursday, so make sure you click through the favicon to visit the party. I've actually posted two tablescapes, so if you didn't see "The Year of the Pig" ... you can see it here
