TABLESCAPE TUESDAY! Winter Woods With White!

Hi all!

Welcome to my first "TABLESCAPE TUESDAY"!

This past Sunday, we had yet another wonderful "Sunday Family Dinner".   This is our third in our new tradition of weekly special meals with my family.

If you're new to my blog, one of my New Years Resolutions was to start a weekly tradition of a "formal dinner" with my family every Sunday that we're in town.  

We eat dinner together almost every night at our kitchen table, but it's mostly casual food that is easy and cheap!   

With this new Tradition, every Sunday, I'm decorating our Dining Room Table with a fancy tablescape, making a more formal-style meal, and we're dressing up and sitting down as a family to dine "in style"!  =D  

I'm hoping that this is a tradition that we will continue for many years, even after the kids are grown and have their own families. 

So far the kids have really enjoyed it, and I'm trying to have them help with this special meal so they really feel like they're a part of making it happen!

Sooo...for the table, I went with a "Winter Woods and White" kind of theme. Cuisine Kathleen was having a tablescape challenge of sorts, to create a wintery tablescape for her link party "Let's Dish".  This was a fun one to put together...I was trying to make it feel like a snowy wooded path in the winter. 

I even filled some of the table space with some decorative rocks I got on clearance at Target last month.  I also lined the inside of the tea light candles as well as a pillar candle on the buffet with these rocks.

I found these cutie pie bird cages at Ross for $2.49 that were filled with woodsy potpourri that I thought would be really cute to add to the table.  I then found some cute greenish/brownish pedestals at Goodwill that the bird cages could fit perfectly on to give them a little height!   I decided to empty the potpourri elements and then put a candle and a few potpourri pieces in there with the candle.

This centerpiece is made from a few great finds...The brown wire basket at the bottom and the green candleabra were both Goodwill finds. I got the greenery liners from our trees outside. The potpourri from the birdcages lined the inside . I really like how it came together and the potpourri smelled very woodsy and nice!

These little winter birdies were a great find from Pier 1 in their Christmas clearance area. Less than $2 each and they were so cute! I just got two and they'd actually fit great into the birdcages too!!  For this table, it's almost like they escaped their cages and were roaming freely through the "wooded path"  complete with decorative ROCKS and everything...haha!




Each place setting had a dark brown charger plate, (Michaels had these on sale for $1.50 last week!) Ivory colored dollar store plates, multi color brown salad/dessert plates from Goodwill, brand new cloth napkins from the Dollar Tree, a place setting with their names, and a few washed leaves from outside. The stemware was inherited from my grandmother.  I love how it all came together!

This beautiful wooden bowl at the buffet was a garage sale find years ago.  $20, but I believe it must have been worth a lot more because it's real wood!  I put it up on a Candle pedestal for a little height

This tray is actually a wooden lazy susan that I used to have in the kitchen before I de-cluttered.  I put it on candle pedestal and added a dark brown charger to cover some of those lighter wood tones.

On to the Menu!

I took my daughter to her friend's Birthday party earlier in the day on Sunday, so I needed to have my table all set up the day before and a very easy to make, yet special dinner.

So I got out my handy Crock Pot and I made a "RUSTIC ROAST DINNER!"   I found a great new roast recipe on Pinterest recently, so I thought I'd try it out!   (the link turned out to be bad, so I'm not sure who to credit this recipe to...if it is yours, please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due!)  =)

It turned out really good...I loved the flavor!  I modified it slightly...Here's what I did.....

For the ingredients I had a rump roast, a package of baby carrots, two cans of canned potatoes, (I would have used fresh, but they were actually SPROUTING, so I thought it might be best NOT to include those...haha!)  1/2 cup of water, one packet of ranch dressing mix, one packet of Italian dressing mix and one packet of brown gravy mix.   That's it!!!

 I put the carrots in the bottom of the Crock Pot.   I seared the roast for a few minutes on each side in a pat of butter and a little olive oil...just to get the edges of the roast a little brown (a little trick I learned from my mother to keep the juices in!) then put it in the crock pot and put the potatoes around it.

In a separate bowl,  (a princess bowl of my daughter's, to be exact...haha) I mixed the 1/2 cup of water, and the three seasoning packets...it made a flavorful sauce with just a hint of a "tangy" flavor to it!   

Then I poured the mixture over the top of the roast and potatoes.  

Eight hours later, THIS is what I had!   I sprinkled some parsley on it for a garnish and I love how it turned out!!!  The potatoes and carrots had such a delicious flavor from the roast and seasonings as well!  It was wonderful!!!

Here is our whole spread....The "Rustic Roast Dinner", some Four Cheese mashed potatoes (the instant kind from Aldi...shhhh...don't tell the kids!!!)  And some pan-seared Green Beans with slivered almonds.  Also a super easy recipe to make and it turned out yummy!

The kids enjoyed helping with the table setup, and other than having them continually asking, "Mommy, why do we have ROCKS on the table??"   I think it went over really well!   

Hope you enjoyed this week's Tablescaping Tuesday!  Thanks again for stopping by!  I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you think!  

Were the rocks on the table too much?  haha!

~The Home Girl


This post is being added to:
Tabletop Tuesdays
Love Makes Good Cakes
The Creative Spark
Wow Us Wednesday
Tablescape Thursday
Let's Dish
TUTORIALS, TIPS AND TIDBITS
Seasonal Sundays