Thanksgiving 2011

Every year I always select a theme to decorate my table for Thanksgiving.  This year I wanted something simple yet elegant.  I love sunflowers and although these are always paired with a more country type decoration, I wanted it to have a more elegant and simplistic feel.  I used brown satin table cloths and bright yellow napkins.  I made little 1.5x1.5 favor boxes where I placed a truffle for each guest and used the decorated boxes as place settings.  I also printed and decorated our menus.  I loved  my petit dessert table.  It only had three desserts because from experience I know that after a big Thanksgiving meal people really don't have space in their bellies for a whole lot of sweets.  Although not a great variety of desserts, they were a hit just the same and the right amount too.  Some people wonder why I go through all the trouble of doing all of that.  My answer to that is that I enjoy making my friends and family feel pampered and special, and this is one of the many ways I can express my love and appreciation to them as well as using my creativity.  My favorite part of this is when finally after a day spent cooking and preparing we all sit around the table and give thanks to God for another year of his provision, blessings, family, trials, and life.  Without Him this is just a day where people sit around and eat.  At the end of every Thanksgiving I am left with the wonderful memories of what everyone had to say of what they were thankful for.  I have seen how through the years my girls have grown by listening to how with time their words have matured and how God is an important part of their lives.  I must say that Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday and it's not for the great food served every year.

 Pumpkin Mousse

 Pumpkin Spice Woopie Pies

Sunflower Cake

This is a very simple cake.  I made it for a baby shower.  The flavor is guava with fondant.  The sunflowers are made of gumpaste. This cake with another tier and could be great for a bridal shower or even a wedding with a monogram on top. 

pumpkins

These were cupcakes made of vanilla cake with vanilla bean buttercream.  These are great now for the holidays and can be done in flavors such and pumpkin spice.  The pumkin is made of MMF

Fall or Thanksgiving cookies

These are Vanilla Bean cookies.  They are covered in Vanilla Bean  flavored Royal icing.  I'm really happy on how smooth they came out.  I finally figured out the right consistency. These cookies flew!

Acorns, Leaves and Pears

Pears (I love how these came out)

Leaf

Thanksgiving Dessert Dominican Cakes

These cakes I made are not artistic in their nature because the client wanted something simple, merely to be enjoyed for their taste, but delicious they were!  Dominican cake with plum and cream filling covered with Suspiro (Dominican Frosting) or boiled meringue.  I had to make one for me as well!

 

This was for a customer 10x10 round

 

I made an 8x8 for the family

Damask - Black and Green Tablescape

This year I wanted to do something  different for Thanksgiving.  I didn't want to use the traditional colors and icons used for this celebration. So I decided to use Damask and Sage green.

I made these little favors that also served as place cards for everyone sitting at our table. Inside are two Ferrero Rondnoir chocolates. These are simple mini lunch sacks that I cut a piece of Damask scrapbooking paper and glued on and added a punched tag with a ribbon. With a black pen I wrote our guests' names.

Menu card tucked into a pocket folded black napkin decorated with damask ribbon I found dirt cheap at Micheal's. I made the menus with Photoshop using a Damask stamp. Trimmed it with a similar green cardstock and used Chopin font.

 

Dinner tables for 12 people. I had beautiful yellow roses pn a black vase and smaller vases for the centerpieces and pears to bring in some warmth and whimsy to the black and sage green colors used. As a runner I used some damask material.

Closer view

The desserts consisted of Dominican cake, apple pie, pumpkin pie, coconut flan, Vanilla bean cookies, and delicious fruit turron.

Thanksgiving 08 Dinner

I love a pretty table especially for such a beautiful time of the year where the family gathers and thanks God for every blessing. This past year I bought these two pretty stamps and decided that I would use them to do my menus, napkin rings and place cards. You can't really see in the pictures, but I heat embossed the stamping leaving a nice puffy outline. I used nice pearlized papers in green, pumpkin and tan. I inked the edges of the menus and place cards with a sepia color. I bought a piece of fabric that has leaves and made napkins. I used a pretty sage colored tablecloth. For the centerpiece I used candles and draped a vine of leaves around it. I also made leaf cookies in the same colors as party favors and placed them in a plastic wrapper with a ribbon in similar colors.

Thanksgiving 08

This was my dessert cake for my last Thanksgiving dinner. The theme was Fall Leaves.

Thanksgiving Cookies

Great alone or as a centerpiece if placed on sticks