Seashells and tropical plants make guests feel like they're dining on an island beach.
Set your table with the relaxed beauty of the tropics for a summer feast. You don't need to do something garish and over-the-top to call up island breezes and deserted beaches. A few well-chosen touches - and a cold fruit juice and rum punch -- are all the ambiance you need. Does this Spark an idea?
Shells and Silver
Break out grandma's silver cake pedestal or footed candy bowl, and fill the elegant serving dish with beautiful beach shells. A simple linen tablecloth and napkins as lacy as sea foam complete a subtle evocation of a tropical beach at dawn, before footprints and shell scavengers disturb its pristine tranquility.
Tiki Bar Decor
Center a tiki god lantern in the middle of a grass cloth-covered table. Lay flat banana leaves at each place setting for placemats and poke a florist's wire into cut tropical blooms such as anthurium or hibiscus and twist around napkins to become napkin rings. Serve drinks including Mai Tais in cut pineapples or coconuts for real tiki bar appeal.
Tide Line Suppertime
A table runner of unbleached hemp, stamped with starfish, transports dinner guests to a tropical beach. A cluster of small glass fishing net globes in the middle of the table becomes the centerpiece, and half-shells at each place setting hold handwritten name cards. A quick smear of glue and a dip in real sand make those name cards look like they were salvaged from a buried treasure chest. Cloth napkins pick up the color of the table runner stamp.
Lagoon Table
Clear aquamarine glass bowls and chargers sit on a sand-colored tablecloth like a juxtaposition of water and beach. A salt-bleached curve of driftwood, studded with live exotic orchids, is the table's centerpiece. Napkins that look like yacht pennants flank each place setting, and a couple of coconut shell halves hold votive candles.
Tags: each place, each place setting, place setting, like they, look like, name cards, table runner