A Winter Cozy Cabin Tablescape

January 13, 2026 by Beth Wilson in Tablescapes

We have a small cabin in the High Sierra and I like to post a mountain cabin themed tablescape in the wintertime. You can see the other mountain themed tablescapes that I have created together with 300+ other tablescapes that I have done on my blog, https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/tablescapes . I found this Rustic American Cabin Plaid tablecloth on Spoonflower online. I like its cozy warm feel.

I saw these winter cabin scene dinner plates online somewhere and I found some on Ebay. They are marked Lodge by Genuine Sonoma Home Goods. I like the snowy cabin and snow covered pine tree. Creme, forest green, and burgundy are good colors to use on a winter tablescape. Because I wanted the entire design on the dinner plate to show I didn’t use a salad plate on this plate stack for this tablescape.

I bought these Cambria sage green stoneware dinner plates at Pottery Barn several years ago. This color has been discontinued although they have a pretty deep green color one now. This plate is large enough that I sometimes use it as a charger and I love plates like that. I bought it in several other colors for that reason.

This marblelized light brown and cream flatware is marked EM3 Inox 18/10, Made in Italy. I can’t remember where I bought the set online, I have had it for a few years. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying flatware here.

My sister-in-law gave me these brown cotton napkins, they belonged to my mother-in-law. I am so glad to have them and use them. I love true traditional primary colors that aren’t some weird modern variation. I found the cabin napkin rings on Ebay. I looked for cabin napkin rings for years with no success but these popped up suddenly a few months ago and I grabbed them. To read about the What, Where, and How of napkin rings please click here.

I can’t remember where I bought these cast iron forest green pine tree place card holders. They are heavy! I like buying metal tablescaping items because I know that they won’t break and they will last a long time. To read about the what, where, and how of place card holders, please click here.

I bought these hand-painted pine tree glass goblets at HomeGoods a few years ago because in the winter I have often done mountain themed tablescapes and I knew I would use them. They are perfect for this tablescape. HomeGoods often has inexpensive goblets in lots of different styles. The green acrylic goblet on the right came from our Pier 1 store before it closed several years ago. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying goblets for your tablescaping collection including the colors that I use most often here.

I bought this STARSWR Bird House on Amazon. It was natural wood but Hubby painted it for me to match the tablecloth. I set it on a brown wooden stand that I had. It will go outside for birdies now.

I have many candles and candle holders and I decided that I needed to start using them more often. I bought these green glass candlesticks online at Sur La Table. They are a really thin and delicate glass and I love the design. They had them in a darker bright blue and I bought those as well. I have a collection of taper candles in different colors so I always have the color that I need when I want to use a taper candlestick.

To see over 300+ different tablescapes that I have created please click here. If you are on Facebook, join my Table Settings and Tablescape Ideas Facebook group (4,000+ members) for lots of tablescaping inspiration! Just click on the Facebook Search box at the top of the page and type in Table Settings and Tablescape Ideas or click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2553689988183392

For lots of other Tablescaping DIY tips and tricks click here: https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/tablescapehowto

If you live in Southern California join our Facebook tablescaping group Southern California Tablescapers BTS Group, (270+ members) and click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/440356398581157 We had a gathering for tablescapers last year in the Los Angeles area and we hope to have others in the future.

I put a new tablescape on my blog every week, please check back!

This blog post was featured at Miz Helen’s Country Cottage, https://www.mizhelenscountrycottage.com/ Please visit her blog for lots of great recipes!

A Winter Penguin Party Tablescape

January 06, 2026 by Beth Wilson in Tablescapes

I have had a Penguin Tablescape on my tablescape list for a few years and I finally decided to try to pull one together this month after not being able to find everything that I wanted in past years. Winter tablescape themes are difficult. Besides snowmen and snow, finding ideas for tablescapes can be a struggle especially after creating 26 other Winter tablescapes over the years. You can see all of those tablescapes and 250+ other tablescapes that I have done on my blog here: https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/tablescapes . I wanted a bold strong tablecloth design for this tablescape and I found this black and white waffle weave tablecloth on Amazon. Reviews said that it would come right out of the dryer and not need ironing but I was skeptical. I washed it and they were right. I think I will iron it next time though to make it a bit flatter.

I found these penguin appetizer plates on Etsy. I had found the penguin cookie jar first and I wanted a penguin plate design using black, red, and white and these were perfect. Because of their smaller size, when I use appetizer plates on the plate stack, I add another plate to the plate stack because I like the way the different sizes look stacked on top of each other.

This black salad plate was made by 10 Strawberry Street and the pattern was called Classic Black Porcelain. I probably bought them at HomeGoods or on Ebay several years ago. I have the matching dinner plate too.

These red dinner plates are made by Fiesta and the color is called Scarlet. This pattern and color are actually our every day dishes and I use them often on my tablescapes. You can read about what you need to think about when you are buying dinner plates here.

This is a Mikasa Color Spectrum Charger in the color Alpine White. I have this charger in several different colors and I bought them all on Ebay as I saw them over a few years. The Internet says that this pattern was only made between 1992 and 1993. I am not sure that is true but in any case they are no longer being manufactured. I tried to find six of this white color and pattern for years with no success until suddenly I found six at different places online a few years ago after occasional google searches. You need to have patience when you are looking for specific items for tablescaping, that’s for sure!

If you read my blog you have seen this Milano Red flatware set by Ginkgo International LePrix on many of my tablescapes. I have had this set for many years. I am not sure where I bought it. I now have it in other colors as well. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying flatware here.

I love these basic bright red cotton napkins, I can’t remember where I found them. I found the penguin napkin rings on Poshmark online. To read about the What, Where, and How of napkin rings please click here.

I found these acrylic red penguin place card holders on Etsy. I set them on a red circular place card holder that I already had to give them a bit more height. To read about the what, where and how of place card holders, please click here.

I think the red glass goblet on the left came from Crate and Barrel a few years ago. I had been looking for some simple red goblets and I grabbed these when I saw them online. I only bought six and I wished I had bought more but Hubby found six other red glass goblets at HomeGoods that are so similar you can’t tell the difference. The white glass goblet on the right came from HomeGoods last year and it had a label that said Barsk Original. It’s difficult to find white goblets so I was happy to find this one. They are both tall goblets and I like that because my table is large and I think taller goblets look better. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying goblets for your tablescaping collection here.

I found this penguin cookie jar on Ebay. It was the first thing that I bought for this tablescape. I set it on a small white cake stand that I bought a few years ago at HomeGoods. I added a penguin salt and pepper set that I found on Amazon.

I added a red salt and pepper set by Brighter Barns to the tablescape that I found on Amazon.

I also added a Mosser white glass salt and pepper set that I bought online from Everything Kitchens.

To see over 270+ different tablescapes that I have created please click here. If you are on Facebook, join my Table Settings and Tablescape Ideas Facebook group (4,000+ members) for lots of tablescaping inspiration! Just click on the Facebook Search box at the top of the page and type in Table Settings and Tablescape Ideas or click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2553689988183392

For lots of other Tablescaping DIY tips and tricks click here: https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/tablescapehowto

If you live in Southern California join our Facebook tablescaping group Southern California Tablescapers BTS Group, (270+ members) and click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/440356398581157 We had a gathering for tablescapers in January in the Los Angeles area and we hope to have others in the future.

I put a new tablescape on my blog every week, please check back!

This blog post was featured at My Wee Abode, https://myweeabode.com/ Please visit this blog, you will enjoy it!

A Gilded Tablescape for New Year's Eve

January 03, 2026 by Beth Wilson in Tablescapes

A few days late but maybe it will give you ideas for next year’s tablescape. I have only done two other New Year’s tablescapes because I have been reposting the ones I have already done each year but I decide that this year I would create a new one especially after I found this Happy New Year tablecloth at Spoonflower online. All three of my New Year’s tablescapes have used the black and gold color scheme, maybe I will do something different one of these years!

I found these white salad plates with a gold rim at HomeGoods a few years ago. They are labeled Grace Teaware, Fine Porcelain. I was planning to use a different salad plate but we couldn’t find it. I really need to inventory my salad plates, I have way too many at this point and it is difficult to find what I am looking for now. For ideas about the what and how of salad plates, please clink here: https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/blog/2021/4/18/tablescaping-diy-part-4-choosing-what-plates-to-buy-salad-plates

These black dinner plates are labeled Classic Black Porcelain and they were made by 10 Strawberry Street. When you are beginning to collect dinner plates for your tablescaping collection you should start with buying dinner plates in classic primary colors like red, black, white, green and blue. You will use them over and over on your plate stacks. To read about what you should be thinking about when you are buying dinner plates please click here: https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/blog/2020/10/1/tablescaping-diy-part-3-choosing-what-plates-to-buy-dinner-plates

I found these gold chargers at Crate and Barrel a few years ago. Crate and Barrel never disappoints me, their products are well made and great quality. To read about what you should be thinking about when you are buying chargers please click here: https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/blog/2020/9/28/tablescaping-diy-part-2-choosing-which-plates-to-buy

This gold plated flatware was a gift from Hubby a few Christmases ago. I had bought a cheap set of gold flatware several years ago. It was poor quality and the gold started flaking off. You get what you pay for! We found this set on major sale at Macys. It is made by Wallace and is called Mikasa Duchess Gold. It is brighter than this photo shows and it is heavy. I love the design on the handle. This flatware set really brings out the gold color on this tablecloth. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying flatware here.

I looked through my napkin collection and I realized that I don’t have any bright gold napkins so I found these polyester gold napkins on Amazon. They are the right color but they are really thin and difficult to iron. I have had the simple black napkin rings for a while, I can’t remember where they came from. To read about the What, Where, and How of napkin rings please click here.

I found these gold colored place card holders on Amazon a few years ago. They were made by Gray Bunny. A simple gold place card holder is a good one to have in your tablescape collection. To read about the what, where and how of place card holders, please click here.

These goblets are the tallest and largest goblets in my tablescaping collection. They really make a statement! The black glass one came from Z Gallerie online several years ago. It was called Onyx. They are eleven inches tall and the glass is thin and delicate. I bought them in white as well. The clear and gold goblet on the right also came from Z Gallerie as well a few years ago. It is a very large goblet in size. The gold swirl on the clear glass is in a higher position on some of the other goblets. You can see this in some of the other photos. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying goblets for your tablescaping collection including the colors that I use most often here.

I really love these gold candlesticks that I found on Amazon. They came in a small box and each one screws together in three different parts. It makes them really easy to store! The candle opening is a bit too large but I put foil around the bottom of the gold candles and that helped. We shall see if the gold color holds over time. I felt like the centerpiece needed a bit more pizzazz so I found some gold bead garland on Amazon and added that as well. I already have gold bead garland but it is buried in the attic space somewhere in 130+ boxes of Christmas decorations so needless to say I just bought more!

For lots of other Tablescaping DIY tips and tricks click here: https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/tablescapehowto

If you live in Southern California join our Facebook tablescaping group Southern California Tablescapers BTS Group, (270+ members) and click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/440356398581157 We had a gathering for tablescapers in January in the Los Angeles area and we hope to have others in the future.

I put a new tablescape on my blog every week, please check back!

A 12 Days of Christmas Tablescape

December 22, 2025 by Beth Wilson in Tablescapes

The idea for this 12 Days of Christmas Tablescape has been in the back of my mind for a while but I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to create it. From time to time I browse several of my favorite stores online and when I saw these 12 Days of Christmas dinner plates at Pottery Barn recently I decided to buy them and start working on a tablescape with this theme even though I thought that it might take me a few years to gather everything and pull it all together. As it happened, I was able to finish it this season. The tablecloth choice changed a few times but I finally settled on this red paisley pattern tablecloth. I found it at HomeGoods several years ago, it was made by Ralph Lauren. I love using it on my more formal Christmas tablescapes. I used it on a Christmas Reindeer themed tablescape two years ago. You can see that tablescape and 270+ other tablescapes that I have created that are posted on my blog here: https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/tablescapes . I have the matching napkins for this tablecloth but I decided to use ivory napkins on this table setting to match the background on the dinner plates. My daughter and her wife came over and they helped Hubby move the table and add the two leaves to it (it is a Stickley table and it is all really heavy). They also helped with the design. My daughter is a tablescaper too and it’s fun to work on tablescapes with her. Each of the twelve place settings on this tablescape has elements that illustrate one of the twelve gifts from the 12 Days of Christmas song.

For many years I have collected children’s picture books with full page illustrations. This goes back to my days working as a Children’s Librarian fifty years ago and conducting story times when I wanted the illustrations in the picture book that I was reading to be easily seen by all the children. Now I mostly just buy a new children’s Christmas book every year and sometimes the theme has been The 12 Days of Christmas. Here are a few examples from my collection. I put them out at Christmas time and I enjoy seeing them and reading them again.

One of the Christmas children’s books that I bought this year is about the story behind the 12 Days of Christmas song. If I knew about it before I had forgotten it. The "12 Days of Christmas" in the song references the 12 days following Christmas, also known as Twelvetide in Christianity. The period begins with the birth of Christ on December 25th, and ends with the coming of the Three Wise Men on January 6th, also known as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. I was going to get really organized and post one place setting from this table every day during that time period and then the full tablescape on the last day but…life happens and I decided to just post them all in one post now.

These Pottery Barn stoneware 12 Days of Christmas dinner plates illustrate the twelve different gifts mentioned in the song around the rim of the plate starting with a partridge in a pear tree at the top on the right and ending with the twelve drummers drumming at the top on the left. I didn’t like the salad plates that were sold to use with these dinner plates so I found these 12 Days of Christmas ornaments on Etsy to set on the center of the plates to add some interest to the plate stack. They are laser cut wood and I love the graphics and the colors on them. There is one for each gift mentioned in the song.

I found these Chunful wood 12 Days of Christmas ornaments that I am using as napkin rings on Amazon. I attached them temporarily to a metal gold colored napkin ring that I have. I bought the Gee Di Moda ivory cloth napkins on Amazon. There is an interesting story about my search for things to use on this tablescape. I found a 12 Days of Christmas cloth garland from Scotland on Etsy and I bought two of them. There were 12 rectangles illustrating the 12 gifts from the 12 Days of Christmas on each one. (I didn’t look at it really closely, my mistake!) I figured that I could hang it on my hutch in the background or use the rectangles in some way as napkin rings. The napkin rings were one of the last things that I put on the table because Hubby cut them off the garland for me and then attached them to the napkin rings. I was at 9 ladies dancing and I suddenly realized that instead of 9 ladies dancing it showed 9 drummers drumming. As it turns out a Scottish version uses different gifts for the days. It was quite disappointing because the garland was really cute! Thank goodness I had found these other ornaments that I could use instead.

The gold plated flatware on this tablescape was a gift from Hubby a few years ago. I had bought a cheap set of gold flatware several years ago. It was poor quality and the gold started flaking off. You get what you pay for! We found this set on major sale at Macys. It is made by Wallace and it is called Mikasa Duchess Gold. It is heavy and I love the elegant design on the handles. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying flatware here.

I decided to use my Waterford Lismore goblets on this table setting. The shorter ones were part of our wedding registry and we bought a set of the taller ones for our 50th Wedding Anniversary. You can read my blog post about what to consider when you are buying goblets for your tablescaping collection including the colors that I use most often here.

The centerpiece on this tablescape consists of a faux pine garland from Michael’s, Waterford Lismore candlesticks, a few small gold and red ornaments from Michael’s, and a set of 12 Days of Christmas glass ornaments from Sharper Image online. The ornaments were illustrated by Mark Roberts. These ornaments don’t photograph well but the graphics on them are wonderful. I set them close to the place setting that they match. They are larger 4 inch ornaments and I love the designs on them.

I bought the wood place card holders on Amazon and set them on an acrylic stand. They are easier to see in some of the other photos. I was really lucky with this tablescape. The graphics on the 12 Days items are all wonderfully done. I found the metal gold chargers at Crate and Barrel several years ago. Crate and Barrel never disappoints me, their products are well made and of great quality.

The Waterford Lismore crystal candlesticks I am using on this tablescape are two different heights. There is a shorter one too but I decided not to use it on this table. They come in 6 inch, 8 inch, and 10 inch sizes. We bought them over the years for our anniversaries and other special occasions. I set a gold candle in them to match the other gold that is on the table.

This photo shows the french hen dinner plate center, napkin ring, place card holder, and centerpiece ornament on this place setting.

Though some scholars believe that the 12 Days of Christmas song is French in origin, the first printed appearance of the song was in the English children's book Mirth with-out Mischief. It was published in 1780 though it was a poem, not a song with music. The lyrics have evolved, with early versions featuring different gifts. In the original lyrics, the "four calling birds" were actually “four colly birds." The term "colly" is old English slang for blackbirds. In other old versions of the song, the partridge was replaced with a "very pretty peacock upon a pear tree." It wasn't until 1909 that British composer Frederic Austin wrote the version of the lyrics that we know today. By the way, for 2025, buying one set of each gift in the 12 Days of Christmas costs $51, 476.12. Since 1984, PNC Bank has been tracking the price of giving each gift mentioned in the song. The true cost including all 364 repeated gifts, totals $218,542.98, an increase of 4.5% from the previous year due to inflation in labor, gold, and agricultural costs.

For lots of other Tablescaping DIY tips and tricks click here: https://www.whispersoftheheart.com/tablescapehowto

If you live in Southern California join our Facebook tablescaping group Southern California Tablescapers BTS Group, (270+ members) click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/440356398581157 We had a gathering for tablescapers last January in the Los Angeles area and we hope to have others in the future.

I put a new tablescape on my blog every week, please check back!