My Love Don't Cost a Thing

First, let me say that I hate that song. But it seemed like a good title for this post. Except technically I guess my "love" (or at least my Valentine's decorations) cost $.49. But who's counting?

I've never been big on Valentine's Day but I decided to decorate a little for it this year. I didn't want to invest a lot of money in decorations though, so I challenged myself to use only things I already had. I knew I had a ton of brown accessories and hoped I had just enough pink ones to pull together a pink and brown color scheme. Its not a very elaborate spread, but the tablescape didn't cost me anything.

Valentine's Day Centerpiece. I had a lot of pink and brown polka dot grosgrain ribbon so I wrapped a piece of it around the candles and attached it with a decorative thumbtack I had used on a bulletin board in the past. I did the same thing around the napkins.

I put some pink, brown, and white glass "rocks" in a glass vase with two pink feathers and some floral stems that I hadn't used in a loooong time (they were from the days when the only centerpieces I knew how to create involved fake flowers, so this is kind of a throw back!).

In my huge plastic container filled with more napkins that I care to admit, I found these beauties that I bought a few years back without any idea of what I was going to do with them. I loved the vintage look feel of them though and still do. And they turned out to be perfect for this tablescape!

I realized I had a ridiculous amount of pink and brown scrapbook paper for the scrapbook that I'm never going to actually make (and yet I keep buying paper for it). I tried to make a cute wreath out of it but it didn't quite pan out. Instead I ended up with a kind of garland/banner thing that I'm not real happy about. It did give me a reason to use at least a few pieces of my huge stack of scrapbook paper though so all is not lost.

And this is my pride and joy!!!!!! This wreath almost didn't happen. The whole concept for it came from a spool of pink curling ribbon that my English bulldog got ahold of and unwound. I didn't want to throw it away so I put it in the bag with my gift wrapping supplies. I came across it while looking for things to use in my Valentine's decorating extravaganza. I felt like I could use it for something and wondered if I could make a wreath out of it. I enlisted the help of my BF and we got a wire clothes hanger, shaped it like a heart, and threaded it through the unwound ribbon. It looked like crap! I left it laying in the kitchen for a few days and was about to throw it away when my BF suggested we work on it a little more. So I used some of my endless supply of pink and brown grosgrain ribbon to make a hanger for it and to give it a little more shape. Well, technically, I came up with the idea to use the ribbon and the ever helpful BF actually engineered it. Then we tied a bow on the bottom of it to make a little tail.

I saw this foam cupid at Hobby Lobby and fell in love! He was only $.49 (this was my big splurge!) so I bought him and glued some pink and white glass beads on him. Then we attached him to the middle of the wreath.

I'm proudly linking this project on Tater Tots and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up Party!
http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/2010/02/weekend-wrap-up-party.html
For only $.49 I'm pretty happy with the outcome! I put some old stuff to good use and got my pics posted in time to participate in Tabletops Tuesday at Grits and Glamour and Tablescape Thursday at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com!
Now I'm ready to decorate for Spring! Too bad there's still snow on the ground...