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Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas for Your Table

If you like to plan ahead for your holiday entertaining, you’ll love this post. We are all about Thanksgiving place setting ideas for your holiday table.

I’m guessing that you have traditions and dishes for setting your Thanksgiving place setting ideas, but it’s always fun to change it up a bit.

Many of us have inherited or collected tabletop “ingredients” that we use year after year. Whether because of sentimental reasons (grandma’s hand~embroidered tablecloth) or because we found the perfect Thanksgiving dishes at an estate sale, we love using things that evoke memories of previous Thanksgiving meals.

Let’s be honest, we can use grandma’s hand~embroidered tablecloth and Aunt Sally’s silverware and the estate sale dishes, and still find ways to spiff up our Thanksgiving tablescape. So with the focus just on the individual place setting, let me demonstrate some Thanksgiving place setting ideas for your holiday table.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas for Your Table

This post contains links to products used in this project. If you should order any product from this site, I may receive compensation, but you do not pay a penny more.

My Thanksgiving and my place settings were inspired by this photo from Lindsey Brunk. She described it as simple and elegant and that is a perfect description. Although this place setting was posted in 2014 (I didn’t even know what a blog was in 2014!), it is still current and timeless.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

I was not familiar with Lindsey, but she is a wedding and event planner. I always read new (to me) bloggers’ ABOUT page and discovered that Lindsey lives in Dallas! So we are practically neighbors!

Elements in my Place Setting Inspiration

Lindsey’s place setting is very simple, I would even call it minimalist. There are just a few ingredients.

  • silverware
  • napkin
  • greenery in muted shades of green
  • long stem
  • paper with one word in script

You’ll also notice that Linsey’s color scheme has a dark background and is very neutral in tone.

Fortunately, I had everything I needed to be inspired.

Inspired Place Settings

It looks like Lindsey used a dark tablecloth, but I decided to use a neutral placemat in a woven texture. We use these placemats a few times a week because they are so easy to clean up for everyday dining.

So let’s start with a close version. A cream linen napkin, a gather leaf (from our DIY Challenge earlier in October) and a few pieces of faux wheat. I bet there are a thousand pieces in the sheave that I took apart a few years ago. The gather leaf is actually a place card. If you like to use place cards as much as I do, here are more place card ideas.

I used our sterling silver ~ accidentally picked up 2 patterns.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

Then I switched to the wood napkin ring that I also made for last month’s DIY Challenge and rearranged the placement of the wheat, silverware and napkin.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

Last week as I was shopping for Halloween cards at Target, I walked by the Dollar Spot (always) and picked up this pack of raffia for $3.00. It should last for quite a while, don’t you think? I also bought one in black.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

So next, I used the raffia and the “gather” leaf to make a different napkin ring and moved the wheat to the top of the placemat.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

Some safe and lavender from our backyard provided some greenery of soft tones like Lindsey used. I added a wood slice (freebie from Haven) and one of our mini~pumpkins. No napkin ring this time.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

Years ago on a whim, I bought a set of green dishes for Thanksgiving. I use them every year. I wanted to try this soft green color in the place setting. A nice place for the wood slice and pumpkin. The “grateful” is a stencil called Grace Gather Grateful from A Makers’ Studio that I made in September for another project, but it was too big so I’ve been saving it. I used Gel Art Ink in Can’t Never Could (black).

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

I also made a “gather” sign. This is like hand~lettering already done for you.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

Mix it up: a trio of sage leaves and the napkin and silverware on the salad plate.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

I tied the lavender and sage with some of the raffia and brought back the “gather” place card that I did hand letter.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

We actually had a wine glass on its side at a restaurant in Boston. These are Dollar Tree glasses from last year. I made the “GRATEFUL” banner using the Wreath Trio Grateful stencil and cream~colored burlap ribbon to go on a fall wreath last year. I used Metallic Gold ChalkArt which I thought turned out beautifully.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

Let’s set that glass upside down.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

The last of the 3 signs I made last month is “grace” laying on a green napkin. Changing out the color of napkins can change the whole look of a place setting. As you can see, I bent the watercolor paper a bit.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

This plaid fall napkin is also a seasonal favorite.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

As I said, this Pinterest Challenge was just for fun, so I switched out the neutral woven placemat for our other everyday placemats this time of year. This plaid can be used with several different colored napkins ~ I have cream, green, rust, burnt orange, and cranberry. Back came the wood leaf napkin ring.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

And, for my last fall place setting, I added both the dinner and salad plate of our Thanksgiving dishes.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas

Now I have several ideas all ready to go for tables this fall. You can see how I used these ideas in a complete Thanksgiving tablescape.

Which one is your favorite? Do you ever just play around with different styles? This was like rearranging furniture or accessories to see which works best ~ on a small scale. Be sure to PIN these ideas.

Thanksgiving Place Setting Ideas


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19 Comments

  1. What lovely place settings! I love the idea of setting a beautiful table for Thanksgiving, but I usually get too busy with food preparation to do very much. I’m glad you included some very doable ideas!

    Thanks so much for joining the Grace at Home party at Imparting Grace. I’m featuring you this week!

    1. Thank you so much. One thing you can do early – like a few days ahead is set your table. It’s done and makes the house look ready for entertaining. Thank you so much for the feature. Can’t wait. Love your party.

  2. Lovely table setting ideas. I love them all and I am feeling inspired to do something special this year! Thank you for the wonderful ideas.
    Happy Halloween,
    Kippi

  3. Such pretty place settings, Carol!
    They’re all lovely, but I think my favorite is the one with the raffia tied around the napkin and the wheat straw at the top. I love the simplicity of it. I like your silver flatware too. I think the mismatched look is perfect. I might not have even noticed if you hadn’t said something. Thanks for sharing at Homestyle Gathering!
    >>> Kim

  4. Carol, I think I like them all but I really love the orange big plaid placemat!! Of course those fall colors are speaking to me right now. 😉 I didn’t notice the mixed flatware until you mentioned it but actually they all look beautiful together. I often do that anyway when I am setting our table because I like the eclectic look. 🙂

    Very pretty all! Thank you for sharing so many different ways to decorate our tables.
    Fall hugs, my friend,
    Barb 🙂

  5. Hi Carol! What lovely place settings! I love playing around with my place settings, too. Sometimes you don’t know which style you’ll like until you see it, right? I love your stencil designs and enjoy using stencils for my various craft projects as well.

  6. I really like the pumpkin on the woodslice… any of those are my fave! So happy to be hopping with you, and love that you shared a plethora of ideas for a Thanksgiving place setting! Pinned!

  7. Carol I just love all the ideas you gave us here today. Each one I just love. Such a great blog full of inspiration. Thanks!

  8. You came up with so many great ideas, Carol. I like them all and can’t honestly pick a favorite. I love your sterling silver flatware and wouldn’t have noticed that you used two patterns if you hadn’t pointed it out. It’s interesting that the Boston restaurant set the table with the wine glasses down. I like that idea and perhaps we’ll see it catching on all over the country.

  9. Each of your place settings is stunning, I love them all and so much inspiration. All the additional printables are fabulous ideas to use for future settings too.

  10. Carol,

    You have offered so much inspiration. I love them all. I go back and forth between the leaf and the banner.

    You always inspire. So happy I found your blog.

    Cindy