Design on a dime

So when my mom was here over Thanksgiving we went to lots of stores: crafty stores, discount stores, fabric stores, home stores, and put together some table decor ideas.

I am having such a hard time coming up with a "concept" of what I want. I know I want it to feel warm, elegant, TAD "rustic (to go with the venue building at the zoo) I also want a "magical" quality,not quite sure how to describe, except to say that sparkle and a certain whimsical quality are included. I also know I want to use purple and green. I was also going to try very hard to use minimal flowers for the tables in order to stay with in our flower budget. Although almost every table I see has flowers, so most of these will have to be improvised with something else.


THE SF ZOO GREAT HALL

I tried to find a better picture, but was unable. But as you can see the building has a stone fireplace, and a lot of wood details (including high exposed beam ceilings) so it has a *bit* of a lodge feel to it which I'd like to pick up on in the Decor.





These are some thing I pulled from the knot and other sources of tables I liked, and some that give the general "feel" I'm going for. Unfortunately, they don't tie together AT ALL =(


I like the simplicity of this table setting, also they used purple and green (although I'm thinking a brighter purple) There is also no flowers on these tables, which is good.










Minimal flowers, love the color of the flowers they used.











Has the elegant feel like.








These are pretty much the colors I want to go with












This has the "magic" aspect that I was looking for, along with the "rustic" or natural feel as well.













This one is simple, minimal flowers







This table is one of my favorites. I love tulips, I love that is has a "warm" feeling. I don't know if there is anyway to achieve this feel with out using the tulips however, and not sure the budget can accommodate the purchase of the long stemmed french tulips (which is what I believe these are)






Here are some of the concepts that came out of my mom and I experimenting with our purchases at various places. I'm not sure that any of these really are EXACTLY what I want... but I'm thinking about combining some of the above ideas with some of the elements from things below which we have purchased, and doing one more round of mock tables. I will reveal my favorites from the ones my mom and I built in a bit, but what do you think ? Do you like the colored table clothes, or is white (If I go with white, it will actually be an off white) more classic and fresh do you think ? How did you get started picking your table decor ? How did you decide what "direction" to go in ? did you just start with colors, did you start with a kind of theme ? DO TELL I think I'm starting to get there... but need a bit more to make everything cohesive, because as you can see from above, my inspiration is a bit all over the place.