As the days grow a bit longer, the sun bring welcome light and warmth and the crocuses start to bloom, think about doing a good spring cleaning of your entertaining pieces. This will prepare you not only for a new entertaining season, but also to entertain with style on the spur of the moment.
Take out all your serving pieces, dinnerware, flatware – all of it! Anything you use when you have company over to eat.
Are there pieces that are chipped, cracked or discolored beyond hope of redemption? Get them out of your entertaining area and do something else with them. Cracked plates and platters make great bases for planters, can be used as wall art or broken into pieces and glued into a mosaic. You can even set cracked plates into cement and make garden stones out of them. Just get them out of your cupboard!
Do you have serving pieces you don’t like to use but hang onto out of a sense of guilt (as in Aunt Madge gave you that hideous bowl for a wedding gift and you’d feel guilty getting rid of it)? Get over it! If you don’t love it, don’t keep it!
Do any of your dinnerware pieces need replaced? Take an inventory? You can find affordable china replacements through a variety of outlets online.
Look at all your flatware and serving sets? Do they need polished? Are the fork tines all in good shape? Do any of them need replaced?
If you have silver items that need polished, make them shine before you put them away.
Spending a bit of time now not only prepares you to entertain beautifully on a moments notice, it also rids your cupboards and closets of things you no longer like or use.
Happy Entertaining!
Savvy Entertaining 