I had a BLAST on Thursday getting a cute little dinner together for our precious friend from church. JO has one of the biggest hearts and servant's attitude that I know! She is so dedicated to the kids at church and the 2nd graders she teaches in school. She is PandaPop's summer intern as well...just because she LOVES it! We had JO over on Thursday for some movies and to watch The Office. However, we were having horrible weather that night so we didn't get to see The Office because the TV stations were stuck on the meteorologists' reports of the play-by-play ominous clouds and eminent weather.
These darling little buckets are my new pride and joy!!! Just on Tuesday at MOPS we had a church member come and share her ideas for tablescapes. Most people I know just roll their eyes and say things like, "Oh---there's NO way I could do that!"...and opt for not ever doing anything, but drive-thru "cooking" all the time or throwing out paper plates every night because it's easier. I love the convenience of paper plates, too, but my blood starts pumping when I get to decorate around a theme!!! Seriously, I was hanging on every word our guest speaker said and got some great ideas.
The premise behind decorating a table for dining is not to go over-board with $$$ and see how expensive you can get or to impress your guests, but rather to make the extra effort to BLESS them and honor their presence in your home. I went out on Wednesday to SPECIFICALLY find little silver pails just like the speaker had shone us. God blessed me!!!! He led me right to them and they were only $1.00! ; )
You can see that they are simply filled with a cute cloth bandanna for a napkin, a bag of chips, a sandwich and a Blow Pop along with a Black Cherry soda. The cookies are a recipe from MommySpice that are made from cake batter and are scrumdilliumptious!
We had a picnic on the living room floor and made a memory to last forever. I love this kind of stuff and love blessing others with it!
Can't beat finding a Yankee Candle for half price!!!
I have had this plate from Southern Living at Home for several years and I just love changing the ribbon and the message for each season, party, whatever. After having no ribbon since Easter and the corner looking bare...I got this very pretty espresso brown ribbon for it. I adore brown!!! Really love brown and red together. Mmmm.
These little things are just a sampling of the small details in life that bring a smile to my face. ; )
Saturday, April 19, 2008
A Little Effort Goes A Long Way
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17 comments:
How cute! I love this idea! It looks like so much fun! I may have to try something like this soon...maybe as an end to the school year party for my kids or something! Thanks for the idea!
Where did you find the pails?
What an awesome idea. Our circle of hospitality is growing by leaps and bounds. This would be so economical and fun! Where did you get the buckets? Please tell me it is somewhere a small town girl can get them. Thanks for my bday greeting. I'll post pics soon. When school is out I hope to see you face to face. The girls miss your darling and are afraid she will forget them.
snowwhite
Don't you just LOVE Mops! Awesome stuff! Your Decorations are fabulous of course! Due to weather I have not net- so I am at the library- got make it quick- LOL!
LOVE Panda girls Hair- hope you keep it like that for a while. Love your hair as well- did think I would enjoy you cutting your hair again- but really cute!=) and your guest- well, she could pass as an exact look alike for Estons step mom- freaky!=)
Okay, we are soooooooooooo much alike it's scary. I love love love ideas like this. I love doing tablescapes and fun things like this on a budget. I love the lunch pail idea. So cute!!! That would be awesome for a playdate group as well.
Oh I wish we lived closer to each other. Hey, we need a children's minister at our church. Hint, hint. :)
I forgot to add that I have that platter by Southern Living and use it for every occasion. I just love it!
So cute and I hear ya....I love the decorating part of entertaining and love it when you can do it cheaply but still so cute! You don't have to spend a lot of money...a little creativity goes a long way! Good thing my husband is the cook in the house because my creativity in that department is a little lacking;)
I have the Southern Living plate too and love changing the ribbons for the seasons but I haven't written on it yet....I think that will be an idea that I will need to try out!
Hey! I came hear thinking I would find a picture of you lounging in a chair...hehe
LOVE your cute, little ideas...a picnic in the livingroom sounds like a wonderful idea. (Lily would LOVE it, so I might just go ahead and steal it)
And, somebody needs to post Mommy Spice's recipe for those cookies...they look YUMMO!
I was so annoyed Thursday night about the weather! We had a severe thunderstorm warning picture covering up the top left of our screen all night! Seriously? Do we really need a HUGE warning that it is going to rain? It's the wussification of America, I tell ya!
That is the cutest idea I have ever seen! how fun to make a simple dinner special with a little bit of effort and a lot of love. Thanks for sharing!
I wish we would have had MOPS around when my kids were younger.(Macenzie had her 8th. grade dance tonight) The pails are the cutest idea. I may have to try them.
You are soooo good at making things look precious and inviting. I have gotten to see first-hand your awesome creations. I wish I had more of that in me.... Anyway, I was thinking about making some of the cake batter cookies. I have chocolate cake mix, so I may have to throw in some peanut butter chips with it. Yummmm!
thanks so much for taking good care of my J.O. We think alot alike, love, love, love to intertain, etc. wish we could have spent more time getting to know each other before moving to the dust bowl!
So nice!
You are so creative Pandamom! I wish I had the time to focus on this kind of thing - but these days I feel like I am just one step ahead of the next diaper duty and one step behind the laundry pile!
Hugs to all the Pandas!
Renee and the ATH crew
Love, Love, LOVE this idea. How simple, inexpensive yest creative. Thanks for posting your great find!
Oh my!!! You are right...I do love this!!! Chelsi and I will most definietly be borrowing your idea to bless our friends in the near future!!! What a fabulous idea!!! And you know what else...I adore Yankee Candles too...and we have that very same Southern Living at Home plate too!!1 Oh my....were we sisters spearted at birth??/hee-hee! You know I see bunches of similarities in us!!! (wink)
Love you sweet friend!!!
Ok..I just read Sweet Adele's post...and I promise I did not read it before typing mine out!! ooooooo.....now there are three of us...all 3 sisters and we didn't even know it! hee-hee!!! Just had to tell you that!!!
Hugs!!!
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