How to Create a Beautiful Tablescape with Owl Table Decor

Have I told you that we have barn owls living on our property in owl nesting boxes? In honor of these magnificent creatures, I decided to create an enchanting and beautiful tablescape with owl table decor. Using a collection of owls I already had, plus flowers from my yard, and a few broken tree limbs lying around the yard, the concept came together in a matter of hours. Read on for the details…

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Starting with the table cloth, I wanted something a little more rustic than the look and feel of a normal tablecloth. So, I used a painting drop cloth tarp! I found one on Amazon that was the size I needed for my dining room table (9′ x 12′). Then, since most large drop cloths have a seam down the middle, I looked for one without a seam. Bingo! Ordered, shipped, and delivered! But, with it being a drop cloth, it was too long on the width side of the table. Since I don’t own a sewing machine (a PTSD issue from the wildfire that burned our home to the ground), I had a couple of choices:

leave it as is (but people would have to fight with the tarp to sit in the chairs!)
fold the tarp under lengthwise (but that would leave a lump!)
cut it to the size I wanted with scissors and leave the cut edge unfinished (but that could look messy and it might fray!)
do a no-sew hem on the cut edge using iron-on tape as I did in this post: How to Make an Easy No-Sew Table Runner
attempt to hem the cut edge by hand (how many hours would that take?!)
find a seamstress who would hem it for me for a reasonable fee

I elected to find a seamstress who hemmed it for $15.00! So, for less than a $40.00 investment total (cost of drop cloth plus the cost of hemming), I now have a large rustic tablecloth to use for more casual tablescapes. By the way, I noticed in the comments and reviews section on Amazon that several people used seamless drop cloths for curtains. Genius!

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Ideas for Creating a Tablescape with Owl Table Decor

So you like to create Christmas tablescapes, Thanksgiving tablescapes, Easter tablescapes, and possibly other seasonal tablescapes, right? I bet you are probably wondering why would you ever create an owl tablescape! Well, here are a couple of reasons:

For a birthday party celebrating the natural world with a touch of rustic ambiance
For a gender reveal party, again celebrating nature and all the charm and wonder nature brings to our lives
For a seasonal party – this owl tablescape actually works for all four seasons with just a tweak with the flowers
To celebrate International Owl Awareness Day (did you know we had a day honoring owls?)
Or, just because!

My “just because” was to celebrate the owls living on our property. Here’s a video of one that I’ve name Barney:

For more Barney videos, check out these two posts:

The Remarkable Barn in the Sky + 42 Types of Owls

Toilet Paper Roll Crafts: How to Make Adorable Owl Napkin Rings

The Owls I Used in My Owl Table Decor

Note: I’ve strewn links to resources throughout this post and there is also a list of resources at the bottom of this post, too!

Let’s start with the little cuties that inspired this tablescape – the owls! I’ve collected a few over the years as Christmas decor for a rustic woodland Christmas winter theme I create in our guest bedroom. I’ve purchased several on Amazon over the years and some from a local gift shop in my town.

I knew my small collection would work perfectly as owl table decor for this tablescape, so after digging through my Christmas stash, I found what I wanted and, voila, my darling owls don’t have to wait until Christmas to be displayed! The cute owl above is a pale gray with long ears and measures 10 inches high.

I actually bought the cute little gray owl above at a local gift shop, but here’s a link to a similar one in brown that is a Christmas ornament. The bonus in this link is that it’s a set of two, so includes an owl with ear tufts and one with no ears!

This little gray owl has no ear tufts! This one, too, came from a local gift shop but I’m including a link to owl Christmas decorations and stuffed owls so that you can see all the cute little fuzzy owls available on Amazon.

This Snowy Owl is one of two on the table and is about 9 inches tall. I’ve had them so long that I don’t really remember where I got them, but I think Grandin Road (a catalog company with lots of beautiful decor and furniture).

This adorable little brown owl measures 6 inches high and comes in a set of two. I’ve nestled him up against a flat-bottomed wooden root bowl that I turned upside down to use as a platform.

These little stone owls are on loan from a friend; thanks Davide! A set of three, I nestled them next to the little brown owl in front of the upside-down wooden bowl.

This brown-feathered owl is also an Amazon find. More rustic-looking than the plush-feathered owl ornaments and toys, he’s about 6 1/2 inches tall. I’ve placed him on the upside-down wooden bowl and added seed pods from my jacaranda trees plus a small broken tree limb.

I used this adorable handmade-looking wooden owl as my centerpiece. This one, too, is an Amazon find. He’s on top of a cake plate that is covered with a twig plate charger that I bought at Michael’s and that is covered with a piece of faux eucalyptus garland. To cover the base of the white ceramic cake plate, I wrapped the eucalyptus garland around it, added some broken limbs found around my yard and more of the jacaranda tree seed pods as a rustic element. Here’s a close-up so you can see this contraption…

I’ve covered it up so well you can’t see the white cake plate at all! But in the photo above, you can see the edge of the twig plate charger and the weathered tree limb I found outside. Another idea for creating the centerpiece is to use a pretty wreath on top of the cake plate. Check out all these amazing wreath choices!

In addition to the cute feathery and furry owls, I used a few ceramic and resin owls that have a more organic look and feel. The two adorable owl table decor pieces above are almost stonelike in their look and feel. Sold as a set, they too are an Amazon find. Here’s a photo of them at one end of the table so that you can see their scale in relation to the rest of the tablescape…

Small in stature, the largest one is 4 inches high. But because they are small, I can place them anywhere around my house and not store them with the Christmas stuff.

I also added a few owl planters like the one above. These come in a set of six and I went out to my garden and cut several different succulents growing in my garden and just put them inside these little planters. When you propagate succulents from cuttings, you need to let them air dry for several days before planting them in soil. Here’s another one…

This little owl ceramic planter is cream-colored and measures just 3 inches high (without the succulent). Oops! I need to clean the cobwebs off of that succulent I clipped from my garden! Both this planter and the green owl planter are from the same set of six. However, I have another set of six owl planters that I also used on this table. No, I didn’t use twelve owl planters on this table – I chose several from the two different sets! The set that includes both of these planters includes owl planters in shades of blue and one in red and since this tablescape doesn’t include those colors, I didn’t use those owl planters for this tablescape.

I bet you didn’t know that you can buy succulents on Amazon! You can. Lots of them. Real ones! In variety packs! Both potted in pretty pots and in plastic pots ready to pot. To all of you who have yet to embrace the world of indoor plants (or outdoor plants), your succulent adventure awaits you!

I purchased this set of little tiny white ceramic owls from Etsy! The tallest stands 6 inches, the next one is 4 inches and the baby owl is 2 1/2 inches. Here’s a fun owl fact: in most owl species, the female is larger, usually by at least 25%! So, guess what girlfriends? I’m declaring the 6-inch owl female! Her furrowed brow tells me she’s a worrywart!

Above are some other different white ceramic owls I got on Etsy. In this photo, you can see the scale of these owls in comparison to the little stuffed gray owl and the bigger snowy owl behind them.

Other Elements of My Owl Tablescape

I have a collection of real bird’s nests that have fallen out of my trees over the years. I pick them up when I find them on the ground and use them around the house as decor. I love the intricacy and creativity of the different nests – so beautiful! I’ve never found one with unhatched eggs, although I’ve found one or two with the hatched shells still in them. The eggs in the beautiful nest above are faux birds’ eggs that I bought – a little too big with this darling little nest, but cute anyway. I’ve placed this bird’s nest on a mirrored glass and silver dessert stand I bought at an antique store, but you can use whatever dessert stands you already have on hand or even a dessert plate on top of an upside-down glass, mug, or bowl. Here’s another bird’s nest…

Look at the amazing workmanship of this nest! Isn’t it remarkable? I’ve placed this bird’s nest on a tarnished silver sugar bowl. Can you see the tummies of two owls on either side of this bird’s nest?

Here’s another little bird’s nest – this one on a super-tarnished silver dessert stand that I purchased at an antique store. It was already in this tarnished state when I bought it. I’ve polished it a few times, but I like it better tarnished and since I don’t use it for food, but for decor instead, I think it’s beautiful as is! Notice the bird’s nest in the glass jar on the left?

I’ve placed one of my prized birds’ nests in a lidded glass jar! I have these treasures scattered around my home, so I just brought them from their normal location and placed them on this table. Here’s another fun owl fact: most owls don’t build their own nests (a few do); they confiscate abandoned nests of other birds or manmade nest boxes.

Mexican Bird of Paradise, Red Bird of Paradise, or Peacock Flower?

The gorgeous flowers on my table are actually a flowering shrub. Before my house burned downed in the wildfire in 2007, we had what I called my “orange garden.” In that space on our property, I only planted orange-flowering plants. This gorgeous shrub was one of them. So, when we rebuilt our home and started relandscaping the yard, I had to have at least one of these. Self-propagating, we now have at least 15 and some of them are taller than me! They bloom in the summer months and are in full bloom right now, so perfect for this tablescape.

Known by several names (Mexican Bird of Paradise, Red Bird of Paradise, Peacock Flower, and more), the only downside to this beautiful flowering shrub is that is it not meant to be plucked and made into bouquets. They only last about two days in a vase of water. Nonetheless, I chose them for their magnificent color and because they didn’t cost me anything! I know this is crazy, but you can buy these seeds on Amazon! Anyway, I made three bouquets by placing them in clear bottle vases. See them used in another tablescape here – Turquoise and Orange: Summer to Fall Decorating.

Make Your Own Owl Table Decor

Now, here’s the piece de resistance that brings this tablescape all together – owl napkin rings that you make yourself! The owl in the photo above is a Tawny Eagle Owl. Learn how to make them (don’t be intimidated; they are super easy to make and made with toilet paper rolls!) over at this post – Toilet Paper Roll Crafts: How to Make Adorable Owl Napkin Rings.

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Aren’t they the cutest things ever? The one above is a barn owl. My ebook of printable owls for crafting includes 25 different owls that you can use for your table or other crafting projects.

My table is set for 10, so I made 10 different ones. Here are a few more close-ups of the ones on this table:

This one is a brown great-horned owl coming in for a landing or ready to pounce on its prey.

This is a little brown owl – can you see the toilet paper roll wrapped in twine under the owl?

This is a Great Gray Owl – with 25 different owl designs to choose from, it was hard to narrow my choices down to ten!

How to Put this Tablescape Together with Owl Table Decor

After covering the table with my drop cloth nee table cloth, I laid a couple of faux eucalyptus garlands down the center of the table.

Next, I created the centerpiece by starting with the cake plate to give the centerpiece a little height. I wrapped the eucalyptus garland around the base of the cake plate to anchor it. Then I placed the rustic plate charger on top of the cake plate to hide the cake plate and then added another eucalyptus garland on top to further hide any white showing through. Finally, I topped it with the handmade-looking wooden owl.

I scattered the different owl table decor here and there, nestling them into the eucalyptus garland, adding the three vases of Mexican Bird of Paradise, and the cute little owl planters with succulents.

I decided which owl should anchor each end of the table. On this end of the table, I placed my lovely pale gray long-eared owl and on the other end of the table, I used the two little round resin owls featured in the owl section of this post. And, after deciding that my tablescape needed a few rustic-looking natural elements, I walked through my garden and found broken tree branches and jacaranda seed pods to scatter down the table.

I added my bird’s nests here and there and more owl planters with different succulents and more dead tree branches from the yard.

Next, I set out the place settings. I added my rattan plate chargers, white porcelain dinner plates topped with my owl napkins rings (this one is a white-faced owl) with gray and white striped napkins pulled through the toilet paper roll tubes.

I chose to use green goblets for this tablescape. I bought these from Z Gallerie too many years ago to count, so they don’t currently carry green goblets or green glassware. But, (surprise, surprise) you can get several different shades and styles of green goblets on Amazon! In the photo above you can see the twine wrapped around the toilet paper roll tubes to make these adorable napkin rings.

I slipped more tree branches here and there, even a branch with several pinecones down the center of the table. This napkin ring is a brown eagle owl.

This barn owl napkin ring shares space with another set of white ceramic owls from Etsy, a bird’s nest, and a cute stuffed owl.

I used mismatched flatware that I’ve collected plus this set intentionally made that way called Wallace Hotel Flatware, which comes in a set of 4 place settings with different patterns for the knives, forks, and spoons. The long-eared owl in this napkin ring also has a white face and speckled feathers.

One last owl napkin ring to share with you – this one is an adorable Tawny Owl giving us attitude!

Here are several overviews of the finished table with the beautiful owl table decor running down the length of the center of the table – so pretty!

In this photo, you can see the cute owl centerpiece flanked by owl table decor and natural rustic elements used as decorations, both real and fake. While it may seem like a lot of stuff (it is!), I wanted every place setting to have something fun and interesting to look at and so that guests would not feel that they should have chosen a more interesting seat!

Will you do me a favor? Would you share my post on social media? The pinnable images scattered throughout this post as well as below are for your Pinterest boards so that you can bookmark this post and come back to it later. Thanks for sharing!

This is a photo collage I created especially for Pinterest.

This pinnable photo features the cute owl napkin rings and a few other owl table decor details.

This Pinterest collage includes nine images of the owl table decor. I know it’s a bit busy, but how else can you make an impact on Pinterest?

I’ve created a mood board to inspire you! You can pin this photo, too, to your Pinterest board and share it on other social media outlets. For your shopping convenience, below are links to the materials and supplies needed to get the look!

Materials and Supplies Needed to Create a Similar Tablescape

Seamless Drop Cloth || Stuffed Owls || Christmas Owl Decor || Other Owl Decor || Owl Planters || Succulents || Wooden Bowl || White Ceramic Cake Stand || Eucalyptus Garland || Wreath || Fake Birds’ Nests || Fake Birds’ Eggs || Dessert Stand || Silver Sugar Bowl || Apothecary Glass Jars || Mexican Bird of Paradise seeds || Bottle Vases || Green Goblets || Rattan Chargers for Dinner Plates || White Porcelain Dinner Plates || Wallace Hotel Flatware || Striped Napkins

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Tootles,