Thanksgiving Table and Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is Thursday - Yikes!  Fortunately, I am not hosting a Thanksgiving celebration, but if I was I thought I would share with you what my Thanksgiving table might look  like. :)  I'll also let you know where I found some of the items I used, just in case you like them.

Standard white plates go with anything!

Plates: Walmart - Better Homes & Gardens Brand

Glasses: Pottery Barn (they are actually plastic!)

The place holder is such an easy DIY project! Just use a binder clip and a little flair to the paper with a seasonal rubber stamp.

Napkins & Napkin Rings: Pier 1 Imports

The centerpiece has been on my table throughout the fall.  I just added two more vases that I filled with fresh cranberries to add a little more color.

It's so fun to decorate and "wow" your guests with the meal you make and the decorations but what about truly celebrating this holiday by coming together as family and friends to share what you are thankful for.  This seems to be something that can be easily forgotten this day and age.  Below are a couple of ideas that I came across in the November 2011 issue of Better Homes and Gardens.

Thankful Leaves



Cut out leaf shapes and have your guests write something they are thankful for.  Then have them post the leaves on a cork board for an additional fall decoration.  This can also lead to an awesome conversation piece.

Conversation Cards

Use small squares of cardstock decorated for fall to write a quote or a question on.  Put one next to each place setting and during or after dinner go around the room and have everyone read their card.

For more ideas visit the Better Homes & Gardens website.

Enjoy  your Thanksgiving my friends.  I hope this post gives you some inspiration for preparing your celebration and remembering the importance of this holiday!

Beth

Fall Bread Recipes

Hello friends and followers!  Sorry for the blogging hiatus over the past week.  I have been traveling quite a bit for my real job as a training manager and actually just got back from Orlando, Florida last night.  I would love to be writing a post about the "Magical Kingdom" and sharing pictures of me with Mickey and Minnie Mouse but the work conference I was at kept me indoors.  :(

However, I did get a chance to do a little fall baking last weekend. I found two awesome recipes for bread that I thought I would try out before Thanksgiving rolled around (just in case I was asked to bring something.) 

Here they are:  Cranberry-Hazelnut Bread and Milk Chocolate Marble Loaf Cake.



Cranberry-Hazelnut Bread and Marble Loaf Cake

 Both of these bread recipes are very easy, but a little time consuming because of how long they take to bake.  Below are links to the recipes.  (Sorry I didn't type them out for you, but it's a lot to type in a blog post)

I found the cranberry-hazelnut bread recipe in the November 2011 edition of  Real Simple.  Click here for the recipe.

A quick note for the hazelnut bread.  If you haven't toasted nuts before, watch them closely.  10-12 minutes was entirely too long for the hazelnuts in my oven so the bread actually turned into cranberry-walnut bread.  Haha - oops! :)  Also - fresh cranberries work better than frozen cranberries. 

The recipe for the Marble Loaf Cake cake came from the November 2011 edition of Better Homes & Gardens.  Click here for the recipe.

Last night when I came home there was still some bread left so I took some for breakfast.  It was still moist and tasted fresh so the good news is they keep at least 5 days in case you wanted to make these ahead of time. 

NEXT WEEK I will introduce you to Blue Ribbon Fudge made by my co-worker!  This post will include a fudge give-away!  Ummmm.... :)

Happy Baking - BETH

Fall Decorating Pumpkin Tower

I LOVE this idea for fall decorating - Love it!!  I found it yesterday while I was reading A Thoughtful Place Blog. This is such a fresh new idea for decorating your front porch with pumpkins so I thought I would pass it along if any of you are looking to spruce up your front door with some fall decor.  I don't know about you all, but I'm not too successful when it comes to carving pumpkins.  They never turn out like the ones I see in magazines. 

If you can't tell I'm pretty excited about this idea and you are probably wondering "Why don't you do it?"  I would love to build a pumpkin tower.  In fact, I'd probably be working on this little project today because it is a beautiful fall day here in Iowa.  Unfortunately I have three problems that make this project a little difficult.

Problem 1:  Meet 'Bam'
Bam is our smart, young, and extremely energetic black lab.  He would see these pumpkins as the best toy that he has ever played with!  He litterally couldn't keep his paws off them.  I could see these pumpkins rolling around our deck, strung through our front yard or eaten within the first day.

Problem 2:  We live in rural Iowa (Not actually a problem)
We live in rural Iowa, on a county road.  Below is a view of what we see from the deck on the front of our house.  It is beautiful here! There are very few vehicles that drive by - it's great!  This time of year, during corn and soybean harvest, there is actually more traffic with farmers hauling grain to the local elevator. (They probably aren't my target audience.)

Problem 3: Five-digit house number
Because we live in rural Iowa, we have a rural 911 address that is five digits.  Could you imagine this pumpkin tower?  It would be huge!  I think this is a two or three digit house number project.



There are my three excuses.  I actually laughed when I was writing this post thinking about our dog tackling this pumpkin tower to play with the pumpkins and me trying to size up and stack 5 pumpkins on top of each other.  It would be chaos to say the least...

If YOU would like to do this project here is thelink to instructions from the Better Homes and Gardens website.  And, if you do build a pumpkin tower, please email me (contact me page) with a photo of it.  I would like to post it on my blog to show off your project!

Happy Fall!