Decorating the Table for a Valentine’s Day Celebration

Are you decorating the table for a Valentine’s Day celebration?  I love decorating our dining room table.  But, when planning for a special celebration and an upcoming holiday, I sometimes think I need to buy new stuff!  And, I don’t have very much “stuff” for Valentine’ Day, so I was contemplating just that – i.e., running out and buying more stuff!

I don’t have much in the way of Valentine’s Day decorations because we lost our home in a wildfire in 2007 (see my post, Any Way the Wind Blows) and Valentine’s Day decorations have fallen to the bottom of the “need” pile.  Instead, I’ve loaded up with Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas decorations!

So, on second thought (rather than running out to buy Valentine’s Day-specific decorations), I decided to take a look around my house and use what I already have, even if it isn’t exactly for Valentine’s Day!  And, I think I did pretty well!  With a red tablecloth and white or cream accessories, I went into a frenzy of decorating:

I started with a tree that is actually a Christmas tree!  I saved it out, when packing up the Christmas decorations.  It’s made of wooden roses attached to Styrofoam and I bought it at Target.  It’s so pretty I thought why not use in for Valentine’s Day too?  I placed it on a silver tray in the center of the table.

I have a tiered cake plate that I bought a few years ago at Home Goods.  The cool thing about this cake plate is that you can change out the ribbon to suit the holiday.  So, I dug through my small  stash of Valentine’s Day stuff and found a red ribbon with tiny white hearts, while not the perfect size for this cake plate, good enough!

I had yet to make Valentine’s Day goodies on the day I took photos of my Valentine’s Day tablescape.  So, no goodies for the cake plate!  Instead, I found this cute old-fashioned bird house bank that I bought from an antiques store a few years ago.  I placed it on top of a real bird’s nest and then on top of the cake plate.

NOTE:  no birds were harmed in using this nest!!!  I collect nests from our property that have fallen out of the trees and have a small collection of about 5 of them.  Here’s another one:

This nest is misshapen, but I think that adds to its charm.  I placed red glittery hearts in the nests instead of imitation eggs.  This vessel is a cute bird bath on a pedestal.

This pretty little fern is leftover from Christmas.  I had 2 on my Christmas table, one at each end.  I only have this one left – I have a bit of a brown thumb!  I had this Valentine’s Day floral pick in my stash of Valentine’s Day stuff, probably left over from a bouquet given to me by Charlie.  I just stuck it in the fern.

Here’s a view of the pedestal bird bath, the little nest inside with the red heart “eggs” and the Christmas fern.  My plates aren’t white, they’re cream; so in this photo you can really tell the difference!

These pretty white ceramic birds live in our guest room.  I have 4 of them – one large and 3 smaller.  I think I got them at Michael’s years ago, but I can’t be sure!  Also in this photo, you can see the red heart-shaped candy dishes.  I bought those last year at the grocery store.  They came as a set of four.  I have two at one end of the table and two at the other end of the table.  I’ve filled them with Valentine’s Day candy corn.  Love candy corn!

In this photo, you can see the rose tree and little birds to the left and right.  Those are salt and pepper shakers I got from Target years ago, too.

Here’s a close-up!  I love these cute little salt and pepper shakers…so adorable!

Then I decided that I needed placecards for the table.  I had a box of these topiary placecard holders (I think from Michael’s?) and thought they’d be perfect.  But I wanted hearts for the names.  So, I hopped over to PicMonkey and created a template.

They are just printed on regular printer paper; then I cut out the hearts by hand.  I chose a heart with a rounded bottom to make it easier to put into the placecard holder (didn’t think a pointed heart would be too successful!).

The are flimsy (because they are on regular printer paper), but to this day, they are still standing upright on my table!  So, they work fine in a pinch!

Here’s a template for you to use, should you like this idea!  Just copy the photo above and save it to a file on your computer.  Then upload it to PicMonkey and using their “Text” feature, pick your font and type your names inside each heart.  The text color defaults to black, but you can easily change it to white.  Once you are satisfied with your masterpiece, save your creation to your computer.

Then, open Word and “insert” your saved photo onto a Word document and change the size (if necessary) using the little “handles”.  Then, print!

Need help with PicMonkey?  Here are some tutorials I’ve written on the subject that may help you with this project:

• PicMonkey Basics:  Getting Started
• PicMonkey Basics:  Design Your Own
• How to Make Easter Placecards for Your Holiday Table in PicMonkey

Here’s a close-up of that pretty rose tree.

Here’s the left side of the table – all set!  I had heart-shaped paper napkins leftover from last year.  Here’s the conundrum with these particular napkins:  you can’t fold them!  If you do, you’ll lose the heart-shape.  So, I just placed them on top of the red dessert plates.

And, here’s the right side of the table.  You can see the backside of the placecards in this photo – see they are white!

And a nice long collage for you to save to Pinterest for sharing!  All finished decorating the table for a Valentine’s Day celebration!

Tootles,

 

Related Posts:

(other tablescapes)

• Decorating the Table for a St. Patrick’s Day Celebration
• Nevermore:  Decorating for Halloween
• Decorating the Table for a Christmas Celebration