My friend Laura and I recently went on one of the shopping trips hosted by none other than Eddie Ross.  He is extremely knowledgeable and has a world of experience with magazine covers and Martha and tv shows.  He led a group of about 20 women around a local antiques fair/flea market/I am not cultured so I don’t know what these things are called.  And he talked.  I love listening to someone talk because it doesn’t take long to figure out what they are passionate about.  Eddie is passionate about a beautiful, intentional table setting.  He’s resourceful and creative and had no less than 53 ideas for every item he picked up to show us.

Here’s a little video I took on my phone where he talks about investing in some vintage silver plate as opposed to flatware at Pottery Barn.

Wow, I actually did something right.  Fifteen years ago at a flea market in Florida, my husband and I bought a 45 piece set of used silver plate for $85.  We’ve used it every day of our married lives and always put it in the dishwasher {but yes, one knife did come loose!}, what a great investment.

I left with a new motivation to put some extra thought into our table.   I’ll always be more of a casual girl, here’s our everyday table.  Oh, and it’s our formal table too.

As you can see my table setting includes a dog and a handsome child walking around the table on chairs.  And, I love this but, there are times that I want to make it look nicer and I realized that I don’t have a table runner, place mats, cloth napkins or candle holders.  I’ve had all these things in the past but, they’ve broken or worn out and I’ve never cared to replace them.  After hanging around with Eddie for an hour, I had made up my mind that I wanted to put more thought into our table on special occasions. Eddie even inspired the theme for yesterday’s post.  So, in a few weeks, I’ll share what I came up with for a family style, rustic meets vintage meets normal folk with boys and a dog table setting.

For now I’ll leave you with a few photos of things I found interesting while at the place where we were {Metrolina}

  1. I want to hack this mirror, it reminded me of this mirror from Life in the Fun Lane {anyone can make this!}
  2. I wanted to kiss the wood on this over sized fiddle. It was perfection, some of the most beautiful wood I’ve ever laid eyes on.
  3. I want to hack this too–framed sea fans.  They were a couple hundred dollars. I’ve bought a sea fan from Home Goods before and sometimes etsy and ebay have them for $20, put it in a linen lined shadowbox style frame and you are done {disclaimer, I have no idea if people are abusing and harvesting too many sea fans and sustainabilty~anyone?}

This was our favorite booth.  It was gaspworthy.  I SO regret not picking up a business card~anyone know who’s booth this is?

  • Fabric appliques
  • Rosette embellished lampshades
  • A fur covered chair
  • Beautifully mixed fabric

And lastly, I actually did find what I’m convinced is a satanic ram head.  It was resting in an antique baby bed.  And it had eyes.  I think I’ll buy it and hang it over our bed.  I wonder if my husband would like it there?

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Time for some winner announcements::

Winners of the Vintage Pearl $75 gift certificates:: {I try to code up the emails so you will know if you won, expect an email soon if you haven’t received it yet}

Karen from The Williamson Clan

Stephanie C : [email protected]

Winners of the Willow House Giveaways::

from the newsletter sign up winning the french wired stand::

Cara Martin: [email protected]

Jeanna : [email protected]

from the blog comments winning a $50 gift certificate::

Miss Mustard Seed

Paula Waters : [email protected]

Didn’t win what you wanted from Willow House?  There is still one last chance. Any orders, whether outlet or catalog, placed between now and next Wednesday, will be entered into a drawing for a $100.00 gift certificate.  You simply need to select “Nester Girl” as the hostess, to qualify for the drawing.  I just noticed that the Rustic Metal Shelf is on sale for $11.96!

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Don’t forget, we’ve got a great giveaway from DaySpring going on right now that you can enter–someone always wins and this giveaway will have at least 15 winners, maybe more!