Christmas Party Tablescape

At the end of November my church held it's first ever Ladies Advent Tea to help prepare our hearts for the Christmas season.  My lovely friend Carrianne (you may remember the amazing job she did on our family's Christmas pictures last year here!) asked me if I wanted to host a table with her...and by host I mean decorate ;-)  Umm, yeah!  Y'all know how much I love to throw a party.  And to help our church deck out a table for such a fun and meaningful event, I was in for sure!

If you follow me on Instagram, here, you got to see a few sneak peeks of our table during the event.  It was so, so pretty and we had so many compliments on our tablescape and many offers to decorate for upcoming events, how fun!  Carrianne and I decided that we wanted a rustic Christmas feel for our tablescape so we used lots of burlap, lace, and brown Kraft paper and we threw in a little bit of green and red for a pop of color.  I think it came together beautifully!

Much of the decor we already owned so the actual cost of the table decorations on both our ends was  mostly on scrapbook paper and burlap.  You know how I love inexpensive party decor so that was right up my alley!  We loved playing with textures and playing the burlap against the lace for the rustic yet feminine feel that was just perfect for our Ladies Advent Tea.

Our centerpiece was a 3 tiered cupcake stand I already owned that we placed inside an ornament wreath that Carrianne had handmade for her home.  The silvers, golds, and the sparkle coordinated perfectly! 

I ruffled a few scrap pieces of linen I had in my stash and we placed that on the lowest tier to add some softness to contrast the roughness of the burlap on the table.  Carrianne already owned the glitter trees, I think she bought them in a previous year at the Dollar Tree.  How cute are they and for such a great price too!

Carrianne decorated a few votive candles and empty jars for our table as well.  She taped the burlap pieces onto a piece of paper and ran them through her printer to print the words on them.   If you are using actual candles that you plan on lighting definitely double up the burlap underneath the printed words as once the candle is lit you will have a harder time seeing the words!

I love how she chose words that are so meaningful to the season.  Blessed. Simplify. Emmanuel. Thankful. etc, so perfect!

Our church gave each lady who came to the tea one of these beautiful angel ornaments to hang on our Christmas trees.  Aren't they so pretty?

Here is what our place settings looked like.  In the background you can see we used mason jars with red stripey paper straws for water glasses. I tied a bit of red and white yarn around the neck of each jar and attached a simple circular tag with each person's name stamped in lieu of a place card. 

I used my Martha Stewart Circle Edge punch (talked about here) to make a pretty doily to sit on top of our charger plate. That punch has come in so handy I tell ya!  

We placed a smaller glass plate that would be used for the desserts and sandwiches on top of the green doily along with a white cloth napkin.  I made kraft paper envelopes similar to the one I showed you here and I added a bit of vintage lace from my stash at the opening.  Inside each envelope we gave everyone at our table a subway art magnet with a seasonal message as well as a recipe card for the cupcake we gave as a take home gift.  I'll share more about those in another post, promise!

Here is a the box we gave with the cupcakes inside.  Isn't this so dang cute!  I think it was my favorite part of the table!  Our friend Becky of the awesome DIY blog, Posh Pink Giraffe, found the template for these through Cricut.  It is the Sweet Tooth Box digital cartridge if you are wondering.  There are a ton of different box templates on it, I am in love!

How cute is this scalloped lid!  We also added a wooden fork and a snowflake ornament topper too for the ultimate in cupcake finery :-)

Here is the cupcake!  

This was the most decadent cupcake I've may have ever had.  It is a Peppermint Patty Brownie cupcake with Peppermint Cream frosting.  I'll share the recipe with you later this week, you will want to have this on hand for any entertaining you are doing this season, it is seriously sooo good!  

I made little burlap pouches for our silverware which we tied with organza ribbon.  I also made burlap placemats with lace trim.  I will share the tutorials for those later this week too!

The tea was such a fun evening not only because we heard a great message but also because we were able to have our table filled with some wonderful friends from another women's group we are in together.

We truly had so much fun designing our table and we cannot wait to do it again next year!  I hope you liked our tablescape as much as we had fun putting it together!

And can I say what a blessing it is to have friends that are on your wavelength when it comes to your likes...cooking, crafting, sewing, decor, etc. I really feel so blessed that I am surrounded by so many awesome women in all aspects of my life. That we can support and lean on each other and raise each other up is such an extremely awesome gift! 'Tis the Season!

Thanks for stopping by today!

XOXO,