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A few months ago I found a really amazing table runner at one of my favorite local thrift stores. It had such a gorgeous mix of textures, and an understated elegant vibe… and oh, that fringe! I’ve used it in at least two tablescapes so far, including this Valentine’s Day tablescape, and I’ve also left it on the table even when not set for a bit of Winter warmth.

For this table, the runner is used to delineate the “table for two” space – it creates the boundaries for the tablescape when the boundary isn’t the whole table, and makes it feel just a bit more intimate. This year it’s more about Winter warmth and a variety of textures than it is about over-the-top hearts and flowers. Here’s the Valentine’s day tablescape for two that my sweetie and I will be enjoying – so simple, but quietly lovely!

We’ll be enjoying our simple fare using thrifted “Old Britain Castles” by Johnson Brothers of England. This venerable pattern features a different castle on each piece, and comes in several transferware colors including blue, pink, and mulberry. The dinner plate (shown here in pink) features Blarney Castle in Ireland.

Look at that detailed edge design!

Our thrifted napkins are a wonderful faux suede, wrapped in a luxurious beaded ring that looks like pomegranate seeds. I found these at my favorite consignment store. Have you heard the theory that pomegranates – not apples – were the “forbidden fruit” in the Garden of Eden? Some scholars believe this to be true primarily because of the likely geographic location of the garden in the Middle East. A fruit used for temptation is certainly appropriate for a Valentine’s table!

Flatware is thrifted “Springtime” stainless – I only have the two dinner forks in this pattern, so they were perfect for this table where there’s no salad. The other side of the plate is a modern utilitarian steak knife by Palm.

Our glassware is the sturdy and generously-sized “Duratuff” by Libbey – these are in pink, but I also have them in purple.

More of that wonderful runner and its various textures – it’s velvet on the back, and the fringe is beautifully nubby like drapery fringe. I love the heavy weave and the shirred velvet!

Here’s a look at the fringe from another tablescape – I only have this “candlelight” shot!

The centerpiece for this table so simple… I’ve had these heart Christmas ornaments in tan and pink for several years, but have only ever use them as Valentine’s decor. A friend once told me they “look delicious,” and she’s right – they look like little Valentine macaroons!

The little soft pink votive/tea light holders were a recent thrift store find, as were the silverplated salt and pepper set and bowl.

After I set and photographed this table, I began to play around with a different idea for the napkin – I did a heart-shaped napkin fold, which I ended up really liking. So now for the actual day, I have to choose between “temptation pomegranate” napkin rings, or a super-suggestive heart-shaped bed napkin fold (bow-chicka-bow-wow)! Here’s the staging shot from my napkin folding video tutorial over on TikTok, where you can find me as @vfcstyle.

For more tablescape inspiration, join me over on Instagram (@vintagefloralcottage) where I’ll be participating in Tables for Soiree (#tablesforsoiree), a weekly hashtag filled with beautiful tables! I’ll also be sharing for Tablescape Thursday at Susan’s blog, Between Naps on the Porch. And of course, be sure to check out my Facebook Group, Thrifty Tablescapers, where we share creative ideas for beautiful tablescapes on a budget!

Here’s an image for Pinterest, too, in case you’d like to save my “textured table for two” for future ideas!

Friends, it’s here! The Eight Hundredth (800th!!) week of Tablescape Thursday over at Susan’s amazing blog, Between Naps on the Porch. You have no idea how much I have loved this weekly feature of hers – going on now for more than 15 years! I first discovered it with the 100th installment, in 2010. She doesn’t know it, but with that post Susan was literally responsible for me discovering the art and fun of tablescaping. I had been collecting random dishes for a period of time, and enjoyed mixing and matching pieces, but it wasn’t until I started visiting Tablescape Thursday week after week that I finally understood how you could express so much creativity through table settings! This has lead me to a much larger collection of dinnerware and tablescaping accoutrements than I ever imagined myself having, to the creation of the Facebook group I started called Thrifty Tablescapers that now has almost 7,000 members (and accompanying Instagram account), and of course to my own full-blown obsession with the art and fun of setting pretty tables! I specifically set out to create an elegant but fun and colorful table to share for the 800th installment of my all-time favorite blog link party – and to do that I started with a set of dishes that I appreciate so much because of where they came from. Read on, but please do hop over to the 800th Tablescape Thursday for so much more tablescaping inspiration!

I have a really sweet friend (we were college roommates!) who knows how much I love tablescaping. She also knows I love peacocks especially in art, and that I have a large peacock tattoo. So one day she was thrifting, and she found the most amazing set of dishes – dinner and salad plates in this gorgeous peacock pattern by 222-Fifth.

Did she call me to come and get them? No! Ask the manager to set them aside for me? Again, no!

Instead, she bought them and gave them to me for Christmas!

Originally I was going to try to do an over-the-top, gold sequined spectacular theme for this table, but the more I played around with these beautiful plates the more I just gravitated toward something a little more refined, a little toned down. So let’s take a tour around my brushed gold, elegant peacock table!

The tablecloth was a challenge – I wanted to use the gorgeous textured runner (a charity shop find) with all that incredible fringe – but I felt like even the runner needed “grounding.” I tested a few candidates, and settled on my thrifted gold damask cloth. Appropriately wintery, because weather-wise we were in the deep-freeze at this point.

The place settings featured the dinner plate – I will have to do another table featuring the salad plates at another time – set upon a brushed gold charger. These were from Dollar Tree. For the salad plates I used a simple white plate with gold rim, also thrifted. I off-set these to the right so guests would immediately see more of the peacock design on the dinner plates.

Napkins had to be the aqua beauties I had recently found at my local Stuff, Etc. consignment store, and the thrifted napkin rings were jeweled and beaded in shiny brown, amber, and gold tones.

Flatware is my heirloom “Flair” by 1847 Rogers Brothers, handed down from my grandmother. And glassware is the stunning “Bahia” tumbler by Rocco. These are pure artistry to me and were a steal at Goodwill several years ago at $2.99 each!

For the centerpiece, I rounded up a few items from my peacock collection to carry through on the theme. The candleabra is a recent Goodwill find.

The metal peacock was a gift from my daughter, and the little sparkly brooch was a gift from the same friend who gave me the dinnerware!

The next piece may seem out of sorts – it’s just a ceramic head, after all. But hear me out! When I worked at a small antique mall several years ago, one of the vendors was a man who was trying to sell some of the smaller pieces from his deceased mother’s collection of highly artistic home decor. She had wonderful taste, though not really in keeping with the vintage vibe of the little mall. Her son had put several pieces from her peacock collection in the booth, including this one. I couldn’t afford anything else in the booth, but I wanted to support this particular customer so I bought this lovely piece even though it appeared to be the lid off something else. I had it for a few years before I finally figured out that it is indeed the lid from a trinket box in the Edie Rose Peacock Collection by Rachel Bilson.

Here is the salt and pepper set for the table – vintage, from a large collection of S&P sets that Greg and I bought to re-sell. I kept this one pair.

Here are a few more views around the table.

Here’s the birdseye view:

And a few shots using the magic of candlelight – I just always oooh-and-ahhh over the soft shimmer that candlelight bestows on a dinner table!

And a final view from one of my favorite angles:

And here is the put-away shot, with everything gathered up and looking beautiful before it goes back into the cupboards:

Finally, here’s a Pinnable image in case you’d like to save the Peacock Table for future ideas!

Thanks for looking, and don’t forget to visit Tablescape Thursday for more inspiration!

It’s been an unusually mild Winter here in Iowa this season (I’m not complaining – I’ll take it!) and we just had our first major snowfall this week. Don’t get me wrong – it’s beautiful, and I’m especially glad I work from home so I don’t have to drive in it.

But Winter is not my favorite season, even though I do enjoy creating a Winter tablescape. While last week’s table was all about the cozy, this one embraces the chill with an icy, silver and white color scheme.

I made a subtle change to this after I started taking pictures – so some of them will reflect that change while others won’t. You’ll see what it is, I’m sure. For how, here is our “Winter chill” plate stack:

The salad plate is “Bellemeade” by Minton, made in England but sourced (where else) at my local Goodwill thrift store.

The dinner plate – harder to see! – is vintage Anchor Hocking “Bubble” in icy blue. I remember this pattern from my grandmother’s home: she had just one plate, and she used it at every family dinner I can remember to serve the crescent rolls! To me it will always be “the roll plate,” and it’s so odd to think of it as an actual dinner plate! My set of 4 was also thrifted.

Silver chargers are from Dollar Tree. The shimmery napkins are woven with silver and gold threads. Do you want to know a secret? I hate them! They snag easily and threads get pulled, creating puckers in the surface – especially if napkin rings are involved! And their polyester fabric is just too slippery to be useful as actual napkins. But they do contribute to the shimmery, icy look of a Winter tablescape, so I’ve allowed them to stay. I honestly feel the same way about the silver-threaded tablecloth. Great for looks, but icky to use!

Glassware consists of the sparkly “Dublin” water glass on the left by Godinger (a recent Amazon purchase. You can find them here – this is my affiliate link, which means if you purchase from my link you pay nothing extra but I earn a small commission to help defray blog hosting fees. Thank you for supporting my blog!). It’s paired with a set of four wine glasses recently thrifted with a leaf and snowflake pattern. They are not marked, but are similar to some Libbey patterns I’ve seen.

Flatware is the gorgeous mid-century “Flair” by 1847 Rogers Brothers, which was handed down to me by my grandmother. Also a set we used at family dinners throughout my childhood!

Remember I mentioned something I altered after I started taking photos of my Winter tablescape? If you compare the above photo to the very first photo in this post, you’ll see it – I really felt that the two silvery candlesticks at either end of the centerpiece were missing something. I decided they needed something soft and snowy for texture. I added bits of polyfill for the little tealight bowls to sit on, both on the candlesticks and on the table itself. It really helped soften all those hard surfaces!

Here are a few more views around the table!

And of course a few candlelight shots!

And here is a Pinnable image in case you’d like to re-visit this post for future ideas!

I’ll be sharing my snowy Winter Chill tablescape over at Susan’s blog Between Naps on the Porch. Be sure to click through for the 798th Tablescape Thursday!