Tablescapes add such a nice, warming touch to your home during the holidays. This year I decided to go with simple natural elements (greenery, fruit, and nuts) that are really pretty when gathered together. Best of all, it was really simple and inexpensive to create.

I gathered some pine tree and Oregon Grape greenery that resembles holly leaves for the “foundation” of the tablescape. I placed some of the greenery in a vintage vessel for the center of the tablescape and then laid down a bed of the remaining greenery down the center of the table on either side of the vessel. Then I simply layered in large and mini apples, oranges that I studded with cloves, pinecones, cinnamon sticks that I had on hand, nuts in the shell, and some star anise.

The natural elements seem especially fitting this year. Not too fancy or fussy, just pretty in a simple, hand-gathered sort of way.

What do you get when you mix a gingerbread house with a cake? A gingerbread house cake!

I’m not sure you could find a cheerier holiday cake than this, and it’s tasty too. Here are the steps involved in making your own!

Make the gingerbread cake batter found on the blog here. Place cake batter in a large jelly roll sheet pan and bake for 15-17 minutes in a 350 degree fahrenheit oven, until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on cooling rack for about 10 minutes. Remove cake from the jelly roll pan by inverting onto the cooling rack. Allow to cool completely.

As the cake is cooling, make the frosting referenced in the cake recipe link above. (You may need to double the frosting recipe, depending on how much frosting you like).

Make a small amount of buttercream for piping the gingerbread house details:

Buttercream:

• 1 cube butter, slightly softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2-3 Tablespoons milk or cream

Beat butter until soft and fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar until well combined and fluffy. Beat in milk/cream until light and fluffy. Adjust milk/cream to desired piping consistency.

Cut cake into six pieces and stack. Trim into a perfect square. Then cut two sections at angle on either side of the top of the cake, so it resembles a house. Fill each layer with frosting. Cover cake with a crumb coat and place in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Remove from freezer and frost. Once frosted, pipe with  buttercream in any design you like.

Notes:

• You can find my book, The Farm Chicks Christmas here.
• If you live in or near Spokane, Washington, I highly recommend shopping local and purchasing your baking equipment and supplies from Carolyn’s Cake & Candy Supplies. If not in this area, the affiliate links to the supplies linked above will take you to Amazon.

Decorating the kitchen with a small Christmas tree adds an extra bit of holiday cheer to your home. To continue my gingerbread theme this year, I made mini gingerbread houses and tiny stars for the ornaments and strung fresh cranberries as a garland. To finish it all off, I used thick red and white twine for a contrasting garland.

Before baking the gingerbread houses and stars, poke holes for hanging. (I like to use the tip of a cake decorating tip to press out a tiny circle. Once baked, cool, assemble, and attach string for hanging.

Notes:

You can find my recipe for gingerbread here.

This mini gingerbread cookie cutter works really well for making the ornaments I baked for the tree.

I use melted white candy melts for the “glue” on my gingerbread houses.

You can find more of my holiday gingerbread projects here, here and here. And one of my biggest gingerbread inspirations here.

Note: If you live in or near Spokane, Washington, I highly recommend shopping local and purchasing your baking equipment and supplies from Carolyn’s Cake & Candy Supplies.  If not in this area, the affiliate links to the supplies linked above will take you to Amazon.

I love the tradition of placing a garland around the front door and I’ve discovered that I can make it much fuller by adding more elements to the garland once it’s hung. I’ll show you how!

The first step is hanging the garland. I don’t want to place any nail holes on the exterior of our house so I use Command Hooks for hanging. I like the larger sizes that will hold 3 or 5 pounds each. I use five across the top and two on each side (placed sideways with hooks facing out), all evenly spaced.

Next, you’ll need to decide what elements you’re going to use to make your garland more full in appearance. I settled on big beautiful Sugar Pine pinecones as my main add-in element accompanied by a bunch of fresh greenery and pinecones collected from our property and some holly I found in the floral section at the grocery store.

To hang the pinecones, I tightly wrapped floral wire around the top of each pine cone, making sure it was tucked nicely under the scales of the pinecones and then twisted the tails of the pinecone wire around the garland, securing each pine cone in place. 

With the pinecones and all of the elements, I take care to place and stand back, place and stand back, on and on, to make sure I like the symmetry of everything as I go.

Now that the main add-in elements are placed, it’s time to start filling in, I like to go with the next biggest pieces, and then on to the smaller and so on, ending with the smaller accent pieces, such as the holly.

To place all of these elements, I find the spot I’d like to place each one and then look for the existing floral wire that wraps around the garland and holds everything into place. Then I take the stem and carefully drive it under the floral wire making sure it’s nice and snug and won’t move.

Keep an open mind with elements. These little brown leaves caught my attention when I was foraging. I loved their medallion-like appearance and their brown color which I thought would add a special little touch that was both dainty and grounding at the same time.

The leaf “medallions” were the last element I added in and I think they added such a great finishing touch!

Sources (some contain affiliate links):

Front Door Hardware: The Hardware Hut. If you’re local to Spokane, you can shop The Hardware Hut inventory at its parent company, Spokane Hardware. You can read all about my process for selecting the hardware here.

Cedar Garland: Costco

Wreaths: Target

Wreath Ribbon: Papermart

Welcome Mat: Target

Front Door Paint Color: SW Languid Blue

Front Door Awning: DesignYourAwning.com