Summer Tablescape and Sand Dollar Placeholder Tutorial

  I love having people over for dinner! I love figuring out the menu and planning the how I will set the table. It gives me a little creative therapy session in orchestrating the details. Even a simple gathering fills a need in me to give to people a good meal and fun ambience. I love the friends and family that gather at our home and lively conversation that always accompanies our time together. Lingering for an hour or two after the meal at the table is the highest compliment for me.

Last night we had a group of our closest friends over for a meal of grilled Copper River Salmon, fresh aspargus , roasted baby potatoes and spinach salad from our garden. Originally I had hoped we could enjoy this meal alfresco, but the evenings have been cool still and with a chance of rain still in the forecast I decided to set it up inside instead. Nevertheless this beach themed table would have been really fun outside and I will do a similar setting some evening when it’s warmer.

Over time my family has collected a bucket of sand dollars for me from our trips to the beach. We all like to find the ones that are whole and see who can find the smallest one. So I have this little bucket of the beachy treasures and decided to use them as placeholders.

I have had them long enough that they are well dried and don’t have a just off the beach smell. However they do have sand inside them, something your don’t really want to add to your guest dinner plate. I shook as much out of them as I could and then got to thinking..Hmmmm how can I plug up the little holes on the back to keep that last bit of sand for spilling out?

Since I’m always patching holes in the wall from my pictures and mirrors changing locations in my house, I keep some sort of spackle or filler around . It worked perfectly!

Here’s how I did it:

Filled the 2 small holes and wiped away the excess,

After the filler had dried , only took a few minutes, I gave them a little shake to see if my idea worked and ’Voila’ no sand came out.Then I used a fine tip sharpie pen and wrote the names of my guest on each one.

Then I played with how to place them at each setting:

The evening was great and next time we dine outside I will have everything ready to go.  Just light the candles and enjoy good friends and some delicious food and wine around the table , doesn’t get any better than this!

Linda

Linking up with:

http://todayscreativeblog.net/craft-making/

  http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/

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