Holiday Table Centerpiece

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I was asked to be one of the hosts for the main course for our Relief Society Progressive dinner this year. I hadn't realized how far I'd let my house go until I started looking around at all that needed to be cleaned, organized, or put away before I wouldn't be embarrassed to have guests over. And then I came down with a sinus infection and my face was threatening to explode...Let's just say it was a miserable week. Luckily my husband has the amazing ability to ignore insanely irritable pregnant women and together we were able to get everything done with time to spare and still be on speaking terms :). So I used that spare time to rest up and get better, right? No. Of course not. There was one more thing that absolutely had to be completed. A table centerpiece. I had no decoration for my table. And as everyone knows, no Relief Society function would be complete without appropriate table decor. How could I show my face on Sunday if I didn't have a centerpiece for my dining room table? Really. Something had to be done.

I've had my eye on this centerpiece for a while now. I think it is gorgeous. I would love to have this on my dining room table 24-7. Of course it wouldn't last more than 2 minutes at my house, but let's ignore that for the moment. Instructions for making this can be found at The Thrifty Decor Chick. Isn't it beautiful?

It's also about 4 feet long, which would completely dwarf my 5 foot table, so I decided I'd have to come up with a scaled down version. I also didn't have a lot of time or money to spend on this, so I tried to think of things I already had around the house. What I came up with looks nothing like the original inspiration piece. *sigh* Oh well, someday I'm just going to have to make the real thing!

In place of a mirror for the base, I used this 12" frame that I had sitting around. I bought it at Wal-Mart for $3 earlier this spring. I took out the glass and mat and lined the back with white cardstock paper. Then, I got out my paint and painted it white. And of course, I had my two helpers working along with me. They painted paper plates while I gave the frame about 4 coats of white acrylic paint. If it hadn't been so darn cold, I would have used spray paint.

Then I got out the leftover ribbon from my lamp shade project and placed that on top of the white paper. I tried every possible combination with the candles that I had available at my house, but nothing looked good. I was just about to get in the car and go buy something when I remembered seeing several blogs that had made paper Christmas tree decorations. (Of course, I can't find them now so that I can add the links.) I decided to switch out the candles and berries for trees. So I found coordinating scrapbook paper and folded them into three different cone shapes. Then I glued a pearl on the top for a little something extra.

And here's one of my lovely assistants showing off the finished product. (The other lovely assistant was banned from the table after grabbing and nearly demolishing the largest tree.)

It turned out to be a perfectly sized and priced table centerpiece. And it looked fantastic with the table set with my nice white plates and silverware. Of course, I have no pictures of that. :0)