entertaining / our thanksgiving tablesetting 2014!

so the carpenter family thanksgiving this year might be a little sad. it will be the first year we are doing it with no family coming in to town- typically we have like a thousand kids running around and twenty people in the kitchen. this year there are going to be six of us- not even our whole family is here (syd is still on her mission). we decided to go super fancy with our tablesetting. we went with a mixed metals theme, and threw in some color with the greenery and flowers.

we started with this awesome brass edged mirror that bobette found at a thrift store (it's mostly covered though). she also recently got the rose gold flatware on sale at target. hence the mixed metals! we are so in love with the geometric napkin holders from west elm.

we also got a few of these vases from west elm- is anyone else as obsessed with rose gold as i am???

bobette made little geometric wreath out of triangle instruments from the dollar bin at target.

i designed menus that we placed in ornament place card holders that we've had forever. we seriously can't get enough geometrics!

and of course we had to throw some greenery on there. bobette knocked on a neighbors door to clip some of his jacaranda tree. that's dedication!

we hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving!!

entertaining / dream cake

we threw my cousins a little combined birthday party this past weekend and bobette and angela came up with this super easy and pretty and delicious cake.

we call it a dream cake in our family- and for good reason. all it is is layers of chocolate cake (you can do a box or your favorite chocolate cake recipe), with thick whipped cream in between. they tried out a 'naked' dream cake for the first time, and didn't put the whipped cream on the outside of the cake, so that you could see each layer. they topped it with pink and orange rock candy and a simple homemade sign and voila- the easiest birthday cake ever.