Vintage Valentine's Table

I found these sweetest vintage Valentines at the same local antique store I purchased my awesome farm table.
So, I thought it was only fitting that I put the two to work together to create a sweet and vintage Valentine's table.
As I was working on putting my table together, I thought I would show you my first step one just to keep it real around here... So, first find your dining room table under the random useless stuff you've spent the last few days piling on...Next, I gathered a great tulip bouquet I snagged for $6, the last great remnants of some great flowers the hubby surprised me with, and one of every jar I could find in my house.The tulips went further than I could have expected! I was thrilled.
I arranged the flowers on my table, somewhat hap-hazardly for a natural feel.Can you tell I am IN LOVE with the way these flowers look in the sunlight in their glass vases on that farm wood table top? And for $6 a bouquet, I am going to be watching my grocers clearance section a little more closely this season...

Now, for the place settings, I pulled out some favorites, like my monogrammed plates from way back, some china tea cups, gorgeous pink spray roses and the vintage valentines.

I also added some interest to the napkins by scalloping basic pink dinner napkins and tying they up pretty with red ribbon.

Then, I just sat back and had a nice long look. Sure, the flowers will have to be changed out again closer to Valentine's Day, but I am sure by them I will be willing to spend a few extra bucks for a special family dinner.
Have you done any great Valentine's Day table displays? I would love for you to link them up to our flickr page on the side bar and share your fabulous ideas! In the meantime, I will be linking to these great parties this week. See you there!

Happy Thursday,

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Dining Room Update

Many of you won't remember a much early post I had about my small house. I posted here a few months ago about how I added personal touches to my small house to make it feel more like home. Well, since then many, many spaces in my home have slowly been transformed into a completely new rooms. My new favorite in the house is my dining room.

It started out like this...

And now looks like this...

To transform the space I simply...

1) Introduced the farm table. It is an antique piece my husband bought from a local shop. AKA the best birthday present ever! It was a steal too. You might not being seeing it now in its final form, as we plan to replace the casters and clean it up a bit. I hope to retain as much of the original charm as possible.

2) Upholstered and painted white our old wooden Ikea chairs. This cost less than $10.00 per chair, and made quite a difference I think. (You can see the process I used here.)

3) Added a few finishing touches...

...place settings

...new drapes


...and some artwork.

And that was it. It was a cheap and easy fix. It was inspired by the farm table, and pulled together with items I already had around the house. The art work and curtains were stolen from my old living room, seen here. The chairs were simply re-purposed. Maybe this will inspire you to freshen up an old room too. Anyone have any ideas?

I'll be linking to these parties this week. Happy Thursday!

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Monogram Table Setting and Other Ideas

Well, as you may have noticed from my last few posts I am in fact a redecoratorholic, (as well as perhaps a creator of fabulous new words?) I have only lived in my first home for 2 years now, but have redecorated the living room, master bedroom, guest bedroom and daughter's nursery 3 different times. Well, seeing as how 3 seems to be the lucky number for creating a room I am happy with, I am planning on leaving my dining room as is, (ONCE I finish redecorating it for the, you got it, THIRD time.) Whew. My husband is worn out just thinking about it!

Moving on, my current "dining room overhaul" inspired my most recent project, monogramed place settings. Back around mother's day my husband took me to one of those "create your own pottery" places in town, and I made this:

Which made me of course think I needed another set of plates to match. The only problem was, I didn't want to go back to the pottery place and spend $12 a plate to make them. So, instead I spent $5.00 on this set of plates from TJMaxx...

Followed these easy steps...

Stenciled

Traced...

Painted (with porcelain marker from local craft store)

Baked (according to paint package directions)

To make this...

It was that simple! And it was so much cheaper than using a paint your own pottery store. It's as easy as picking up a porcelain paint pen at your local craft store! I am intruiged now by all of the things I could do with this idea. Here are some of my favorite ideas for future projects so far...

1)Make for wedding and shower gifts.
2)Monogram bake safe bathroom accessories (soap dish, etc.)
3)Buy cheap dessert plates somewhere and personalize with guests names for dinner parties.
4)Buy pre-glased tiles from hardware store and make a house number plaque.

Hmm, truly the possibilities are endless, and SO much cheaper for all of us on a DIY budget. All together the project cost $9.50 and took about 2 hours prep time, 1 overnight paint drying session, and 25 minutes to bake. Now all YOU have to do is comeback soon to see my dining room before and after. I am in the home stretch, (the fabric for my dining chair redo came in the mail today!)

I'll be linking to these parties this week. Stop by and join me!

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