Our Tennessee Life ...formerly The Retail DIYet

Our Tennessee Life ...formerly The Retail DIYet: November 2011

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

My First Thanksgiving Dinner






 

My turkey's 
Hosting our First Thanksgiving
My sisters, Lilly and Mia 

Our table is set

I hope everyone enjoyed thier Thanksgiving.  Ours was a success! This was our 1st Thanksgiving in our new home.  My family usually spends Thanksgiving at my parents house, but since they recently sold thier house Eric and I decided to take over. My whole family was there and we really enjoyed having everyone at our house. We set the table with gold chargers (Michaels) 2.99 with 40% coupon... my mom already had 8 so I only had to purchase 2 more :) I finally got to use my Italian Countryside china that I recieved for my wedding 6 years ago... I found cream napkins with gold embroidery at homegoods for 6$ and wrapped them with various napkin rings... mom gave me about 5 and I found some at homegoods and pier one for about $1.50.  I added a few tea lights in gold votives that I got at Target for .99.

almost ready...
My 1st Turkey 
Mom & I cooking

I enjoyed cooking for my family. I made my own "stuffing bread" in my bread machine.. cut it up into cubes and voila! I recommmend baking your own bread to prepare stuffing... it turned out amazing!






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Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a wonderful Thansgiving.  Ours was amazing!  My sisters and their men came down as well as my parents.  We had such a great time setting up and cooking dinner.  Our goal was to utilize as much as we had around the house to decorate with.  If we didn't have it in house (minus the table and chair rentals) we tried to come up with cheap creative solutions.  Hope you enjoy!


Here are the boys setting up the table
Hanging some lights
We used burlap coffee sacks for the table runners.  
We cut the burlap coffee sacks into long table runners.  We got these for $1.00 at our local coffee place-Bongo Java.

My talented and amazing sister made the place cards which we tied onto a white handkerchief with some twine.

Our small bites were put into plain brown paper bags.
We used our Chalk Board that I did in THIS post to display the menu
We dubbed our Thanksgiving-"NASHgiving"








 We would love to see other Thanksgiving feasts!  Feel free to email us pictures which we will post for you or link to your blog in the comments.
Danielle

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Monday, November 7, 2011

Chalk Board Art

I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend.  Two of my very best friends came to visit and we had such a good time!  I loved having them here and was sad to see them go.  Before they arrived I found this frame at my favorite Goodwill Store and had to snag it up.  It was $4.00--no brainer.



I had definite plans for it.  I've been listening to my Avnett Brothers CD a lot in the car and I wanted to do something with one of their lyrics, so this is what came of it.

First I spray painted the frame with Rustoleum Granite in a Satin finish.


I then painted over it with Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Paris Grey.  I wanted you to be able to see the contrast and make it look a little worn, so I distressed in a few places.

I used a piece of plywood and cut it to fit where the old beautiful (ha) photo was.
 I painted the plywood with chalk board spray paint and secured it into the frame.



 For under $15.00 you have a great piece to put in your home.  Tine and I talked about it and this would be great for Thanksgiving to put the menu or for everyone to write what they are thankful for.

xo, dani

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