Give Your Holiday Tablescapes An Upgrade With An Elegant Thrift Store Find

When planning a holiday meal for family or friends, we all want to set the scene to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere. For those of us who don't have our own sets of family heirlooms to add a sense of tradition to the gathering, secondhand items can help create a setting filled with comfortable elegance. Plus, you can create a completely unique design since those items aren't available in stores. Embroidered linens, such as napkins, tablecloths, and placemats, are affordable thrift store finds that instantly upgrade any tablescape. Adding this type of needlework to your table will infuse your festive gatherings with a feeling of coziness and nostalgia.

Embroidery is a type of needlework that embellishes cloth items with decorative designs, words, or even narrative scenes. There are many different types of embroidery, but they all add interest and dimension compared to plain linens. Table runners, napkins, placemats, and tablecloths are all ways to incorporate embroidery art into your holiday meals.  And when you find these items at the thrift store, you might pay only a few dollars to decorate the whole table with unique or handmade items.

Linens adorned with needlework can complement a festive holiday centerpiece that makes your dining table more elegant, no matter which holiday you're celebrating. Check thrift stores for Thanksgiving-themed items embellished with fall colors, pumpkins, and autumn leaves. Secondhand shops often carry winter and Christmas-themed embroidered linens bearing pinecones, candles, poinsettias, and plaid borders. But your selections don't have to be obviously holiday-centered. Tablecloths and placemats with beautiful Scandinavian or Eastern European needlework that you can use all year long can also provide warmth to your festive table.

After you select and launder your thrifted items, consider ironing them to give your table that extra touch of crisp elegance. Build your tablescape by starting with the tablecloth, and then define each place setting with a placemat and napkin that is either decoratively folded or placed into a festive napkin ring to display the embroidery perfectly. And keep in mind that if your thrifted linens create a strong visual statement, you may want to balance them out by keeping your centerpiece simple. After all, you'll need to save room on the table for all the delicious dishes that will make up your holiday meal.