Centerpiece Cents: Yarn and Jars

It's Tuesday's Centerpiece Cents!  The rule is:  No centerpiece must cost over $5.00 each.  What if you have a lot of tables?  Vases and flowers are your best bet however, individual vases can be pricey, even cheap glass vases bought in bulk can be between $10 and $20 a piece and that's just the vase!  What are you going to fill them with?  Let's get creative.

I went outside and grabbed a bunch of medium rocks and some long sticks from my yard.  I decided I'd use these as the anchor for my idea to hang pictures.

Then, I took a spaghetti jar that I'd washed in the dishwasher, my glue gun, put the rocks in the jar and went to work.  I used some dark gray yarn and my trusty glue gun secured the end of the yarn to the jar and I started wrapping the yarn tight around the spaghetti jar.  About half way I squeezed a small horizontal line of glue on the jar just to make sure the yarn stayed in place and then once I got to the top I glued the other end to the jar.  The original idea was to make a vase that would hold branches and those branches would hold some family pictures or table numbers.

Here was my original plan:

I used the jar lid to trace the circles for the family pictures.

It just didn't look great.  I mean, this isn't exactly wedding-reception pretty.
Back to the drawing board.

So I had my jar, the rocks for my base, I needed something that would look pretty instead of spaghetti jar with sticks.  I walked around the house grabbed some flowers out of another vase and added them to this yarn-jar.  It looked much better.

Different shapes and sizes or different colors of yarn would be beautiful too! 
Think of three different sizes of jars wrapped in the same color of yarn arranged together on each table.

Add a tagged number to the flower to mark your tables.

Now the pretty flowers and leaves cover the top of the jar (you could also wrap the yarn all the way to the top) and it looks nice!  Who would know?  Think, if you're on a budget and you have 125 people coming to your wedding and you have 15 tables, how can you afford to buy 15 vases and stay in your budget?  Remember, most of your money should go into the things that people will remember and enjoy.  Like the food, music, your dress, the cake, etc.  Centerpieces should be beautiful of course, but there are ways to get the gorgeous colors and decor you want without spending more than $5.00 per centerpiece.

What you'll need:

1. Yarn
2. Glue gun
3. Clean spaghetti jar
4. Rocks (to stabilize the flowers)
5. Paper (if you plan on using the centerpieces to mark your tables)
6. Silk or real flowers

The price breakdown:
Yarn... $1.50
Spaghetti jar... $1.25 (after you enjoy some awesome spaghetti first)
Silk flowers... $2.00
Rocks... Free
TOTAL:  $4.75

Now, I'm not sure how much you want to count the spaghetti jar against your cost since you're using it after you've had the sauce for a meal plus tell your friends and family to save all of their jars for you.  Different shapes and sizes or different colors of yarn would be beautiful too!  Think of three different sizes of jars wrapped in the same color of yarn arranged together on each table.  If you're getting the jars for free and you buy a couple of extra balls of yarn, a few more flowers, you're still looking at a nearly free centerpiece.

Every Tuesday we feature a cheap, easy, and pretty centerpiece.  Want to share your idea?  Post it in the comment section or email it to me and we'll put it up here next Tuesday with a link to your blog.

Don't miss our Wednesday blog party! Every Wednesday with the best projects showcased on Saturday.

Posted in: Centerpiece Cents,DIY decorations,reception