Hello, friends! How was your holiday weekend? Ours involved lots of eating. We had friends over for breakfast on Saturday and dinner on Sunday, which was really lovely…I want to serve brunch at our home every Saturday! Yesterday, we relaxed all morning, enjoyed a late breakfast at Tammy’s Diner, relaxed some more, and then shared dinner with our landlord and her family. And in between all these meals, we prepared even more for our little girl. I can now say that I feel officially ready for her arrival. I’m 38 1/2 weeks, which means whether I deliver her naturally as planned or am induced around 42 weeks, we will have a sweet baby girl in our arms within just 3 1/2 weeks (possibly sooner). Waaaahoooo. Crazy and awesome!

A few weeks ago, Joe and I drove up to NJ and NYC, and I taught a creative entertaining + styling workshop at Pepperologie in NYC. Today, I’m just thrilled to be sharing some gorgeous images from the day, captured by Sara Haile.

For my workshop, I talked through my entertaining philosophy and then styled an eclectic, modern fiesta tabletop, mixing and matching old and new items, incorporating nature, and using mostly neutral colors with a few fun pops! West Elm sponsored my workshop, and they were incredibly fun to work with. I’ll be sharing more about entertaining and styling on the West Elm blog, Front & Main, next month – so look out for that!

I had such a blast sourcing the “old” pieces for the table; I used some items I already had, but purchased mostly everything at Unique Thrift Store, which is basically a huge secondhand department store. Each setting had a unique place mat or charger, a place card holder made from nature, and completely different dishes and flatware. Because everything was kept neutral with just three accent colors (yellow, blue, poppy red), the mixing and matching worked! One of my favorite elements of the tabletop was the dehydrated mushroom used as a place card holder. The mushroom added such great texture to the place setting but was so unexpected…I think it was everyone else’s favorite, too! Can’t wait to share more details next month!

Shop the West Elm look:

Dotted Bowls

See you tomorrow!