Hare or rabbit or animals - I think the animal plates will be fun even if it is more of spring woodsy theme now. At least the animals make me think woodsy. I like the owl (snow owl?) very much.

Reason it looked more like a hare to me was the ears seemed longer than rabbit ears.

You know I usually do prefer napkins that way, and that is how I put them, between the plates. I like it better but I'm a bit tired of it. It's also easier for guests not to have to deal with them. The only thing I have 14 of is silver napkin rings, and champagne caps

@mtnrdredux_gw - I would use the bunnies as I think they are fun and goes with the animal motif of the plates. Maybe do half and half ie alternating bunnies and silver rings on the long sides of the table.

Too small:

OMG the QUAIL!! And you actually have white cabbage charger plates?!! I have one white porcelain small serving bowl that is white cabbage leaves, I LOVE it. Its smaller size is nice too. I have a huge green ceramic cabbage leaf bowl that I have never used, it sits on top of the china cabinet. It's so large I have never made anything in that large of a quantity to use it for serving.

Anyway, charger plate envy here!! I just don't have enough storage room to have any, but I have been considering getting a creamy white dish set, could use it with a lot of different things. Something with a little filagree or other type of design along the edges . . . if the plates were large enough I could use them for chargers.

Oh, and don't get me wrong, those bunnies are FAB too. So fab in fact I was just thinking that maybe they fight with the FAB plates for attention . . . or not, what do I know . . .

Beautiful!!!

I have cabbage leaf bowls in both a green and a light green /purple, either would look great with your dishes! They are Jay Wilifred, if you are in the market for more bowls.

Thanks, Pink and KSWL.

It's not actually a charger, Pink. It's a dinner plate; the Spode Woodland plates are salad plates. The white china is Wedgwood Countryware. I bought service for 12 iirc when I toured the factory 30 years ago! They are still my everyday plates. : )

Love the animal plates with the wedgewood-- also love the lime green napkins. It's a jolt to remind all that spring is the next day. Can you get bigger ones? Make do with the too small?

Love this iteration, and the lime green napkins are perfect.

I bought a set of white Martha Stewart plates for everyday in white, with an acorn pattern along the rim. Probably paid about 20 bucks for four. I got them at K-mart.

I loved them, didn't realize how cool they would be. Then I broke one and found out they stopped making them. Now a replacement would cost me as much as the whole set. I haven't pursued it because white has not been my main dish color, but now that we live on a property with 11 oaks and counting and I have named it "Four Oaks" I am getting more into it. I have a fall tablecloth with oak leaves and acorn pattern. I do love the versatility of white dinnerware!! I just happen to have a huge set of ivory stuff I inherited from Mom and Grandma, so I try to go with that, but sometimes I long to branch out . . . literally. Saw some birch themed dinnerware and was coveting that . . .

I would seriously want something wicker on the table in the way of baskets or containers, preferably in the brown of the plates.

Definitely the napkins between the plates - and use the green napkins. Love the animal plates!

Yeah, much prettier than german pubs! lol

This tureen just came along my IG feed from the Ashmolean Museum. Not quite as cute as your bunnies, but definitely Black Forest, Brothers Grimm vibes.

Where DID you get that blue/purple paper runner?? I honestly have no idea where one could find such a thing. I’m enchanted!

SJ,

About a decade ago I was in a kitchen store in the Berkshires and came across "kitchen papers;" in that case they were doilies like this:

I loved the product so much I became a fan of the company, Hester and Cook, and soon started using their paper runners. I have a simple long farmhouse table in my DR,and the "dressed up" informality of paper products works well there. I have bought several different roles of runners, as well as paper placemats. I don't think I've used a table cloth in a decade (but I do prefer and use cloth napkins.)

There are other co.s doing the same thing, butI cannot vouch for their quality. This stock has a nice weight. When I use a runner, I just roll it out on the table and cut is to size; the ends automatically curl under the table edge, and the centerpiece, china, etc, keeps it all in place.

I really need new glasses. I thought that was romaine lettuce in the napkin rings.

Eeek!!! I adore ALL things bunnie/rabbits!!! 💕 Seriously, I prefer Easter decorating to Christmas simply bc of the bunny factor. If I owned those precious napkin rings, I’d use them every time I could possibly make them work, even alternating them with silver if you don’t have enough like someone said upthread. This is going to be a darling lunch! Can’t wait to see the final pics!

Oh, Mtn! Why’d you have to post that site! Now I know I have to have these little wood forks for cheese:

https://hesterandcook.com/products/mini-appetizer-forks-set-of-four

Sorry I don’t have input on the topic … great ideas from you and everyone. I just had to come fuss at you. 😁

ETA: This looks familiar — did you have it and show us?

https://hesterandcook.com/products/cutlery-on-kraft-table-runner

Yeah, I am a total Hester and Cook junkie. But that's just because it works so well for my table and room. In my last house, I had a very formal DR and it would have looked ridiculous. And my K table was round, so no runners. Here, both my bfast room and DR I have rectangular tables and the runners and placemats work really well.

Yes, that was the first runner I bought and I still love it. I have it in 2 colorways and widths!

I also have several of their placemats. The b/w is for crayoning!

Here is the rest of my existing inventory:

I have tulips (and found another way to fold the napkin so it shows!)

I adore this garden theme one, but I use it more in autumn

Love it all! I’m ordering those forks. :)

here's another paper runner I already own (oh and I found a new way to fold the napkins so you can still see them!)

I think this is supposed to be like bark? Never used this one yet

I used to have a green striped paper runner, out of it now. But maybe I could get green striepd placemats and layer it with the bark runner, kind of the reverse of this?

If I use a dough bowl, I might just fill it with green pears, shiny leaves and some sort of tiny white blossoms nestled in that won't die too soon??

Love it all so much! We might just need a tablescaping forum!! Oh, your post also reminds me that on my many Web sojourns in search of linens, I found a blog with some tablescaping sections, and one of them was a fake moss table runner. I can see that as part of yours, given the right circumstances. I'd have to be in a really fanciful mood to use one, but perhaps something green that could evoke it . . .

Dried moss table runner

I think the bark and the stripes might be too busy next to each other??

Love pears and hydrangeas together-- I get hydrangeas year round at wegmans of all places.

Oh,funky, so pretty. I think I'd like a mash up of these three., but with green pears ... no yellow

I pink, I did look at a moss runner. But it can be such a mess, and IME hard to arrange artfully sometimes.

I like green in the placemats ... whether I layer it with the bark paper as a runner or not I can decide later, since I already have the bark paper.

NOTE This last one is die cut curvilinear,but I was too lazy to photoshop it.

Ipink, I love your white plates. I remember a white on white with apples, too. It just always looks nice IMHO. There are not many things I bought that many years ago that I still like today, but my dishes are one. And I hear you about replacements. No one wanted my Mom's silver, so I have it. It is Gorham Fairfax. Mine pattern is Gorham Newport Scroll. I much prefer my Mom's, it is so much more delicate. No one wants silver, but try buying a few extra place settings and there are no bargains!

Each idea is better than the next. Everything looks smashing!

My DH walks into the kitchen, where I have all these different plates, napkins, etc out and he says to me, in a falsetto voice "oh she entertains so effortlessly..."

It takes a village. ivillage, no make that Gardenweb, no make that Houzz

Ah i think they all work. I wondered about the seedling design-- I love it but with your animal plates, i think i prefer the green gingham. You really could go with any of them. Well done!

(and i had to chuckle with your DH. )

This is my favorite with one of the long centerpieces you posted. I'm not a fan of the various placemats.

I missed your centerpiece photos-- love them all so a mashup is perfect. I had also saved that last photo! Just so pretty!

So….what are you serving?

Or have you already shared the menu?

My husband today: "What in the heck are you doing in there?!" (Dining room)

Pink, I had a moss runner about twenty years ago. It was a royal pain in the you know what… had to be unwrapped (from the cotton sheet i kept it in) several days before use and lightly misted with water. It was SO bumpy that NOTHING sat firmly on it and I had to use very heavy vases and candlesticks because anything else would topple over. And people would inadvertently set their glasses down so an edge was on the runner and over it would go. I used it either alone on a rectangular table or over a fringed burlap tablecloth, rustic hurricane lamps, and soulieado patterned cotton napkins from Pierre Deux…. those were the days. It was a LOT of work to pull it off but very lovely when it worked.

Mtn, your husband’s comment hit me uncomfortably close to home! I have that H&C flatware runner and some great blue die cut cardboard chinoiserie placemats. Their things are so cute!!!

LOL, Pink!

Maddie - the way it works is one person coordinates the emails and indicates in advance what people plan to bring. It's pretty free form, but we usually end up quite balanced. This meal sounds sooooooo heavy. German night was not my idea.

So far:

Baked pretzel with homemade mustards

German beef stew

Sauerbraten

Bratwurst with beer, apples and onions
Rye spaetzle gratin

Potato dumplings

German parsnip, carrot, potato hash

German potato salad

Cucumber salad
Apple strudel
German chocolate cake
German sunken apple (versunken aplfelkuchen)
Gluhwein (German mulled wine)

German beer

I'm making the Rye Spaetzle gratin. The Spaetzle maker arrived today. I looked at it and thought: guaranteed, some day, somewhere, in the life of this implement, these 2 pieces will become estranged. And someone will think "what is this square collar thing?" and throw it out. And henceforth people will think "wow, this is a lousy grater." Such is this implement's fate.

Thank you so much, Mtnrd! i look forward to perusing the site

Well now I have ordered paper runners and place mats. I hope you’re happy, Mtn.

That sounds delicious and yes super heavy and not fresh. I imagine the cucumber salad will be drenched in oil too. Yummy but a caloric gut buster.

SueB, ooh ooh, which ones?

I don't have a good table for the paper table runners/placemats but I do love them. One of my local boutiques sells them (my favorites are the winter owls). However, I have been buying from Hester & Cook for years... and i just submitted another order yesterday thanks to this thread and Pink's!

I got this rabbit head and some new Laura Stoddard prints (to add to the ones i bought last winter). I keep my rabbit items out all year-- not just for easter.

Super cute, Funky!

I haven't placed an order yet. I will have to go back and look at the site more closely!

Meanwhile, for other paper junkies, I came across these intriguing ones from Italy:

And I really want these in Maine but not wild about initials and how do you have two if its a family?

t

On sale at Crate & Barrel - paper placemats

and then Mtn, your reminder of Hester & Cook got me searching. Take a look here sometime

... Monahan Papers ... Beautiful things. her paint can labels alone are worth looking at and the list goes on...

The napkins were from a random seller on A-zon. Paper but supoosedly linen-like.

Miho is magnifico 💚

This is a terrible, horrible thread. Those Laura Stoddard prints, Funky! ❤️❤️❤️

I also have a thing for bunnies. I have this guy.

But now I want your bunnies, Funky, and also this.

I think this rabbit came from Pottery Barn two years ago. It’s heavy resin in a ”zinc” color and the basket is big ebough for one of those tiny flowering plants you can pick up at the grocery store. i have wooden blue and white painted eggs in mine, on a bed of shredded mail. It’s springy but not pastel, if that look appeals.

Very cute KSWL!