As a stylist it’s painfully easy to spend a ton of money setting your table for a dinner party. There is a long list of needs – tablecloth (or runner), napkins, flatware, plates, glassware, vases, candles, flowers, place cards, blah, blah, blah. And if you want it to be beautiful, and you know where to shop for beautiful things, which I do, it’s just so easy to spend a ton of money(…slowly) so you don’t know you are doing it. I tend to want the most beautiful hand-thrown stoneware plates, hem-stitched linen napkins, hand-blown artisanal glassware, modern streamlined brass flatware and hand-dyed tablecloth that has been washed a million times, etc, etc.

Congratulations, you just spent $1500 on your 4 person dinner setting.

Flank Steak and Beat Salad from Blue Apron. 

So, I decided to go the more utilitarian route – what do you already have or can have easy access to, and how can you make that look chic and beautiful without spending too much money or doing some crazy DIYs that none of us have time for right now?

Well, welcome to your ‘Chic affordable Winter Rustic Tablescape’. Its like Bridges of Madison County meets Shakespeare in Love. On a table. Get into it, folks;

Lets talk color pallete: since Pantone announced that ‘Marsala’ was the color of the year (which was similar to the color in the flank steak meal we made) we thought we’d embrace it and just make it a whole theme.

For the record ‘Marsala’ is just ‘burgundy’ only slightly ‘browner’, but they are super scared to use the word ‘burgundy’ for fear that all us 90’s kids will run with terror, into our sage and butter-yellow floral nightmares where Blossom offers us a plate of Snackwells, with Family Matters on in the background. The 90’s are back and it’s just terrifying.

While we were conceptualizing this post,  Blue Apron, my meal delivery service (who yes, is now sponsoring this post), sent their delicious Basted Flank Steaks with Beet – Freekeh Salad meal. It looked pretty, dark and sexy so we figured that we would let it inspire the color palette

In case you haven’t heard of them before Blue Apron is a monthly subscription meal delivery service that allows you (and me) to create delicious, chef-designed recipes at home. It delivers everything you need right to your doorstep in a refrigerated box in exactly the right proportions, with step by step photo instructions. It’s basically like having a professionally trained chef right there next to you while you cook without the possibility of him yelling at you when you do it wrong.

This week was the Basted Flank Steak, and it was DELICIOUS.

Not only are the ingredients farm fresh, but they are adding new recipies every week so you will never get bored with the selection. You may be thinking that these meals look far too gourmet and would take me all night to cook up for my family, but each meal only takes 30-40 minutes to cook (sometimes longer if you are watching say,  How To Get Away With Murder). Or you could just stand in the kitchen and listen to Serial while the food is burning, like I do.

It is available to most of the country (check your availability here), and you can cancel or skip a delivery at any time. The best part you might ask? Each meal is only around 500 calories (this one was 630 because it’s steak, but some of the fish are 400 so it evens out).

They have been kind enough to send along two free meals for my first 100 readers that sign up for the service, by clicking HERE. You should seriously just try it. You can cancel ANYTIME. So get on it.

How I like to put it to my friends is that it’s like having a personal trainer for your cooking. If you love to grocery shop, meal plan and cook your own interesting meals, then honestly Blue Apron isn’t for you. But if you are like me and can’t seem to do any of those on your own on a weekly basis, then its a service that can benefit your life. It’s a luxury ($9.99 per person per meal) but its cheaper than take-out and OBVIOUSLY so much better. Also its a great gift for a busy mom (or dad) you know.

So, here we are, back to my tablescape – dusty rose, burgundy, sage green, brown and blush (which we used to call ‘band-aid’ when we all hated it, right?).

But, secretly I love how this looks. It’s so earthy and warm – old world but still with a bit of an edge (the brass chairs and all the gold detailing), and despite all the warm tones, it still feels pretty fresh (the greenery really helps).

Sadly all those oil paintings are vintage and can’t be sourced. I’m having serious ‘Country House’ fantasies lately. I grew up in the country in Oregon and I’m dying to decorate a really beautiful modern farm-house for us. So while these don’t seem like my style (they are, BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS MY STYLE) I will be hoarding them until that fantasy comes true.

Those chairs are at ShopClass in LA, and are pretty dope. I think the set is still for sale, including a dining table (not shown) for $595.

I love the whole look and feel – its like we really got our romance on, and yet this tablescape is CRAZY cheap and easy to reproduce.

WHY IS IT SO CHEAP YOU ASK????????? Well, read on, fellas:

The tablecloth is just linen from an apparel fabric store that I washed, dried and steamed. We frayed the edges (by ripping it) so that no sewing was involved. And then to break up the big intense merlot color, we put simple kraft paper (that you can buy anywhere, Target has it here) over as a runner. It comes 30″ wide but we cut it down to 22″ because it was so much brown.

We bought the plates at our local 99 cent store – which at first I was like, boring, but then when we mixed them in with everything else you don’t even notice them. They are just simple white plates.

The jars are just quilted jelly jars, which do add up ($2.49 each) but you might already have them, and if you don’t, at least you now know that they are multi-functional. Besides being an actual jar, they also are just such simple pretty vases or candle holders.

And the plants are just rosemary (tis the season) in cheap woven baskets.

Were you waiting for this gif?  Me, too. Watch us do it …

Here is how we pulled it together. Get ready for some very easy DIY’s.

The tablecloth and all the napkins were just linen yardage that we purchased, washed and dried, and then simply ripped the into 20″ x 22″ pieces. In case you haven’t done it before, you can actual rip linen straighter than you can cut it. Start with a quick cut to get it going and then just dramatically rip all the way through. You get this really nice natural edge. Buying linen napkins can be crazy expensive (Ginny and Brady love to make fun of me for recently buying linen napkins that were $24 each – they were STUNNING but man, that’s crazy). So this way you can get 4 napkins out of 1 yard of fabric, and this fabric was $12 a yard. I love how they turned out and plan to NEVER buy linen napkins again.

Items Needed:

Gold Thread

Linen Napkins – we purchased some yardage of linen fabric and then washed it and ripped it up into the desired size we needed

Embroidery Needle

Then just choose where you want the star and do a couple of seams.

Gold wire napkin holder Its awesome and so easy.

Items Needed:

Rosemary Sprig – we just picked ours up from our local grocery store where they have precut herbs

Gold Wire – ours was 16 gauge

Napkin

How its done:

1. Wrap the gold wire into a loop around your fingers making the loop around 2 inches in size. It’s also easy if you find a bottle or something with the exact width you want to use as a guide if you want your loops to be more perfect and even.

2. Clip to the desired length once you have looped it around itself

3. Slide in rosemary sprig

For the candle holders we just used old wine bottles and pottery vases to shove candles into. No DIY there, just a good idea.

Next up: the place-card holders:

The placecard holders were very easy to make and are not something that necessarily read as “holiday” so they can be used from dinner party to dinner party.

Items Needed:

Wire Cutters – we sourced ours from Michaels and they were VERY helpful in snipping down the wire after you had bent it around the crystal

Gold Wire – ours was 16 gauge

Crystals – we sourced ours online from Best Crystals

Pen – This is what we used to make the perfect loop at the end of the wire to hold the name.

How its done:

1. Wrap the gold wire around the center of the crystal forming a tight loop around crystal

2. Twist the two ends together leaving one end longer which will then be shaped into the slot for the place card

3. Wrap the end of the wire around the pen 3-4 times very tightly and then slide out the pen which will leave a pretty little slot for your place card

4. Snip any ends and you have yourself a beautiful new place card holder

Candles:

Items Needed:

Candles – we sourced ours from the Dollar Store and they were 99 cents.

Gold Cording – you can pick this up at your local craft store.

Cinnamon Sticks – we found ours in the spices section at the local grocery store. If you buy them in a bag vs. buying them in a spice jar they are drastically more affordable.

How its done:

1. Stack the cinnamon around the base of the candle.

2. Wrap the gold cording around the cinnamon a few times and then tie it all together.

Rosemary votives:

Items Needed:

Votive Candles – we sourced ours from the Dollar Store and they came in a pack of 4 for 99 cents

Rosemary Sprig – we just picked ours up from our local grocery store where they have precut herbs

Floral Wire – you can pick this up from your local craft or floral store

How its done:

1. Wrap the floral wire around the sprig of rosemary. Doing this will allow you to then shape the rosemary and have it retain its shape

2. If one sprig of rosemary will not reach all the way around the circumference of the votive then you can add another to the floral wire and clip to the necessary length

3. Wrap the rosemary around the base of the votive and then twist the ends of the wire together forming a “wreath”

So there you have it. A super affordable and chic winter tablescape. Everything is simple, utilitarian and possibly something you already own or something really easy to find anywhere.

Thank you so much for the sponsor Blue Apron for funding our creativity. I use this service and I highly recommend it.

Brass Chairs | Sheepskin Fur Throws | Linen for tablecloth and napkins | Craft Paper for Runner | Quilted 12oz jelly jars (used as glasses) | Quilted 8oz jelly jars (used as glasses)| Plates | Pillar Candles | Cinnamon: grocery store | Gold Cording | Centerpiece Bottles: Vintage | Peacock Painting: Vintage | Brown Sketch: Vintage | Seascape Art: Vintage

*All photos by Tessa Neustadt for EHD.

This post is sponsored by Blue Apron. Thank you for supporting the brands that help fund our original content here, every day.