Design Inspiration. Planet Stencil Library.: Flowers and Gardens

I love creating 'tablescapes' whether we are eating inside or in the garden. A master of this art is Preston Bailey and he indirectly influenced the birthday dinner table. I wanted to create an enchanted forest in my dining room. Now the room is fairly small so I thought a buffet would be set up in the room and individual small tables would be placed among trees planted in buckets and bedecked with white mini lights. The starting point was this picture from Preston's book. In fairness to Mr Bailey, the only similarity between the two schemes were trees and atmosphere. Chips started to get suspicious when he found the gardener lopping the tops from the laburnum trees. Chips does not approve when I 'transform' the house for parties as it usually means mess for him to clear up afterwards. This time he was a total spoilsport and forbade the enchanted forest on the grounds of health and safety!

"You'll have someone's eye out with those branches". So creativity was reigned in and I modified the idea. The guests were limited to ten. Two trees were wedged in place between two large, glass tables. I took an idea from the book and ruched and bunched black linen sheets on the table top. I then found all the sparkly things I could lay my mitts on and strew them artfully over the table. Rachel said it looked like I'd chucked the contents of my handbag on it, but I assure you it was neater than that. I wanted the room and the guests to glitter. A revolving mirror ball on the floor threw speckles of light around the room and candles were set inside glasses and on mirror cake stands all over the table. Chandelier drops and crystal ornaments hung from the branches of the trees. I bought cheap glass plates from IKEA. It was less than £5.00 for ten plates and that was the only item bought for the occasion. Garden flowers were floated in shallow bowls. No one recognised these snow drops because one always sees them from above. Aren't they fab? Hellebores are another bloom best appreciated floating. Our guests didn't care that my cooking is not brilliant - they never do. On some occasions our guests actually cook the meal! The room looked much prettier than my pictures show. Here is one view of the table and this is the opposite direction. So you see that the enchanted forest was thinned to become an enchanted twig!