Ladies’ Dinner Part One

As I mentioned yesterday, I spent all of last week preparing for an event that we had at church. We were having a Ladies’ Dinner on Sunday night and I wanted to make it really special. We had such a wonderful time and everything went really well, it was a blessing. Today, I thought I would share some of the decor that I made for the event. There are quite a few photos so I’m going to break this up into two posts.

I was so busy running around on Sunday that I was working right up to the wire. The last thing on my to do list was take photos and so most of these photos were very hurried. I was hoping to have time to spend on taking good pictures but these will have to do :) At least I got some right? Plus the lights can get very bright in there but I had to have them on because there are no windows. Because of that, some of the photos have major glare. Oh well, you get the idea! First up: the tables:

We rented round tables because I like them so much better than the long rectangular tables we normally use. And of course, we also rented the tables cloths. I had in mind rustic fall when I was planning this so I guess you can call that my theme. I don’t know why but I hate themes. I guess even though I don’t like to call it a theme, that’s what it is anyway :)

Each table had couple stacks of books and then a plant in a book. I also used lanterns from Target (but forgot candles!) on the stack. For the plants I found succulents that would work and had my Dad drill holes into the books (book lovers don’t hate!) to set the plants in. It was sort of funny because I just went to the thrift store and started pulling out hardbound books that were only a $1 to use for this project. My main object was to look for books that were thick if possible and in colors that worked for my theme.

My Dad told me later that he had a problem with the book in the photo above. Apparently there was quite a bit of swearing and he had trouble finding a page without it. Especially funny because it was a large print edition so I’m sure those particular words would have jumped right off the page. I guess next time I should read the books before choosing them for an event like this :)

After the books were drilled, I put the succulent right into the book and put moss around the dirt. I think they turned out pretty cool.

For each place setting, I layered a gold plate, then a brown plate, then a leaf doily in red. Next I added a paper napkin surrounding gold plastic silverware tied together with twine. For the top I added a vintage Bible trivia game card that I thought was kind of fun.

Each lady also had a menu next to her place setting. I hand wrote the titles and then scanned them into my computer and added the rest of the text then printed them out. I loved how they looked like I hand drew each one. I really love calligraphy. I just wish I was better at it :) I even took a class once but I just don’t have the patience (or desire I guess) to practice enough to be really good. So I just settle for okay :)

As a little gift, each person got a journal that I found at Michael’s, with a pencil. There were several styles of journals, I loved them all! There were also several styles of pencils in different plaids and colors. They felt very fall to me. Then I added the wrap to the journals and the flag to the pencils.

And that is where I am going to wrap up today. Stay tuned for next time, I have more to share!!