Not Quite a Tablescape Competition – Designing in Public

I LOVE tablescape design! You might remember that I’m a big tablescape competition fan! In fact, I’ve competed in my state fair table decorating contest almost every year for the past decade or so. Sometimes I win, sometimes not, but it’s always fun and I always learn something.

This year I can’t compete because I won the division last year, but I thought it would be fun to do some tablescape design anyway and go through the process in public, so to speak!

In years past, I didn’t want to show you as I went along – just in case one of my other state fair competitors was watching, right?! But since it doesn’t matter this year, I’m going to share my tablescape design and creation process from the very beginning! I’m so excited, and I hope you like it too! So here we go!

(I’ve made a 1st draft mood board – I’ll put it down at the bottom.)

Background & Category

I’ve talked a lot in the past about how the contest actually runs, so I won’t go into that here, but if you’re curious, you can visit some of my older posts for a little background.

• State Fair Tablescape Competition #1 – Planning
• State Fair Tablescape Competition #2 – Setup
• State Fair Tablescape Competition #3 – 2019 Reveal

Or just go to the Competition page here: Tips & Inspiration/Tablescape Competitions

This year’s category is Formal New Year’s Eve Dinner, and this is the one that has lots of rules to follow per the American Standard Table Setting Rules. This year’s rules still don’t mention any placement for dessert dishes, (which I think I’ve ranted about in several of the previous posts!) so I’m probably going to leave them off, unless I find I’ve got too much space at the end!

I talk all about the rules and how the points are awarded in The very surprising results of the 2023 tablescape competition, which you can read if you’re interested to see what we’re up against.

New Years Inspiration

So – on to the inspiration! Probably my favorite color combination in the world is gold and white. Throw in a little crystal, cream, and candlelight and I’m in heaven. So of course, those are going to be my colors. Actually, I’m tilting the gold towards “champagne” because, New Years!

The first thing I did was go to Pinterest and look for inspiration. I knew I wanted some flowers overhead – I’ve seen so many beautiful arrangements hanging over tables, either from bars, or hanging from trees, or on tall stands, and I just love the cozy vibe. Especially if there’s crystal involved too.

So here’s inspiration picture #1

It’s actually a little rustic for my New Years Eve table, but I love the concept of the hanging flowers and crystal. The colors are a bit too peachy – I was thinking of pure white, with maybe only a little cream.

And here’s inspiration picture #2.

I don’t know if I’d really go for that many candles, but the concept of the warmth and the abundance is what I’m after. I was originally thinking of a gold sequin tablecloth, or a rich damask like last year’s top skirt, but the mirrored tops on these tables reminded me that I do love a lot of reflection!

That’ll be one of the things I’ll mull over as I settle on the other pieces.

Champagne Snowflake

My working table name is “Champagne Snowflake!” I’m thinking of a bubbly candlelit table and a champagne toast at midnight. If there were windows in my display, there’d be snow falling softly outside.

So I thought I could have some crystal snowflakes in the hanging flowers, and maybe in the trim of the tablecloth. I found these snowflake ornaments at Amazon – they might be just perfect!

I thought, since it’s champagne-based, that I should have a champagne bottle on the table in a bucket. I have a silver one, but I don’t know if I want to introduce silver into the table. I’ll have to experiment and see. If so, I might want to bring in a couple other silver things too – maybe chargers or silverware or something. That’ll be another thing I’ll think about as I’m setting the table up.

I’m thinking something floaty and frothy for the tableskirt. Maybe something like this:

The skirt can’t actually touch the ground (you lose points for that,) but I can trim it so it just barely sweeps above the floor.

And, as I said, my original idea was a sparkly topper, something like this:

Maybe with a luxurious trim around the edge – something like this:

Wouldn’t that be pretty, especially if there were some crystal snowflakes hanging at strategic intervals? I suppose I could still do that even with a mirror top. Hmmmm.

The Place Settings

For the place settings, my initial idea was gold and white, of course. I could use my grandpa’s china, like I did for my very first table competition. It’s unique – and beautiful!

Maybe a champagne charger?

I don’t know – I’m still thinking about the place settings. I might have to actually buy the chargers and see how they look with my various pieces. Not sure if mixing bright gold and champagne is going to work.

Overhead Flowers

But I’m really excited about the table rod to hang the flowers from! I’ve wanted one of these for the longest time, and I’ve seen some really amazing decor using them! This one goes small enough to fit on my 36″ x 36″ competition table and it’s on sale for Prime Days, so I’m planning to grab it asap!

Whenever they show these bars online, they always looks like the picture above, where you can’t see how the ends clamp onto the table. My guess is that in real life it looks a little silly if you clamp it over a tablecloth like this. The picture doesn’t show how it would grab the tablecloth and bunch it all up. Unless they cut a hole into it, I guess.

But I’m probably going to have to come up with some way to camouflage the clamps – likely flowers or ribbons or something.

Since this will be a winter table, I’m thinking that along with the pure white and possibly cream or ivory flowers, I’d use some of these champagne and white poinsettias. I got a few a couple years ago at a great shop near me. Maybe I’ll go see if they have any more. If not, I think these from Amazon would work too, assuming they have stems. (Or maybe I could just glue them in place … ?)

See all the little decisions a competitive tablescape design has to encompass? But really, it’s just like a regular dinner party table – it just feels bigger!

Tablescape Design Mood Board

So here’s my mood board. It’s too bad the snowflakes weren’t on a white background, but you get the idea.

I’m so excited to see where it goes from here! It’s going to be so fun to see if or how far I stray from my original idea. Some years the finished table turns out completely different from where I started.

Let me know if you have comments at this point – I always love to hear what you think!

Thanks so much for sharing this tablescape design process with me!

Barbara’s Boutique Recommendations

Click on the pictures of the pieces I used in this post. If the exact item isn’t available any more, I chose a similar option.

* This post includes affiliate links for your shopping convenience. If you click on a link and buy anything from that site during your visit, I get a small commission and there’s no extra charge for you! It really helps toward the cost of publishing Mantel and Table, and I seriously appreciate it. (You can read the whole disclosure policy here.) Thanks so much for shopping with me!

And remember, a portion of anything you buy from MANTELandTABLE.com goes to Habitat for Humanity and Proud Ground. With our purchases, we get to help people build homes for their own mantels and tables!

The Next Chapter in This Story

To carry on with this No-Quite-A-Competition tablescape story, go to New Year’s Eve Tablescape – Trying To Plan A Sophisticated Winner for the next bit of the saga! See you there!

Shared with

• Tablescape Thursday 07.10.25 – Hosted by Between Naps on the Porch
• Karin’s Kottage Link Party 07.10.25 – Hosted by Karin’s Kottage
• Tuesday Turn About 07.15.25 – Hosted by My Wee Abode