Can we get real for a sec? When you have a four year-old, candlelit dinners don’t happen on the regular. Most nights, our style can be called shove-the-dried-up-magic-markers-and-leftover-breakfast-bowls-from-the-table-so-we-can-eat-spaghetti-leftovers kind of decor. Glamorous, I tell ya.
But when the candlelight does happen? Ohhh it’s magical. I love having people over for dinner where I can dress up our usually lived-in looking house (AKA hiding our crazy).
Today, I’ve teamed up with Lory from Designthusiasm and a group of incredibly talented bloggers to share another round of our Holiday Entertaining Blog Tour. (You can see all of the posts from Day 1 and Day 2 here.)
(Affiliate links are provided below for convenience. For more info, see my full disclosure here.)
Last month, I walked around our house to find items I could repurpose for my Thanksgiving tablescape and ended up with an old shutter doubled as a table runner, scarves as a tablecloth, and some dollar store chargers and candle holders that I transformed with just a little bit of copper spray paint.
This time, for repurposing some decor on our Christmas dining room table, I discovered my stash of vintage bud vases.
You’d probably never know it, but these milk glass vases have a special place in my heart (which most of our decor around our house usually does).
Nearly 50 years ago, my grandparents had a garden in their backyard, and my grandfather tended to his roses in it every chance he got. He loved snipping blooms throughout the summer to give to my grandmother or take with him on visits to family and friends. I still remember that rose garden and when I would ride my tricycle around it as a little girl.
Roses always remind me of him. I miss him every single day, and I somehow got to be the lucky one who inherited his many bud vases from those gardening days.
I had the idea to repurpose them as candle holders, and they turned out way better than I’d imagined.
So now, I have a little piece of him smack in the middle of our table.
I’ve mentioned before that I usually create a St. Lucia inspired crown of candles in the middle of our Christmas table every year to remember my Swedish grandmother too, so it seems perfect that I can now remember both of them this way.
For the rest of our table, I found these gorgeous red goblets at Walmart! Wha?!
And when I was in the Target Dollar Spot the other day (AKA the black hole that sucks you in before you even realize what’s happening), I found these snow globe place card holders.
I love that I can just pop off the metal card holder piece to use them as regular little snow globes if I want to place them somewhere else in our house later.
One of these days, I want to try my hand at making my own wreath from hedge and holly bush clippings in our yard, but our hedges aren’t quite there yet. This store-bought holly wreath looks way better than how my homemade one probably would have looked though.
I added a bit more greenery (the faux kind) around my candles too for some extra Christmas lovin’.
And I stuck these little boxwood wreaths on the backs of our DIY upholstered chairs that I’ve had for a few years now. I use these little guys all over the place year-round.
If you want to know about any of the other items I used, here’s the full source list:
- Red striped linen napkins
- Red striped linen table runner
- Red goblets
- Driftwood chargers
- Preserved holly leaf wreath
- Preserved mini boxwood wreaths
- Artificial pine garland
- Natural straw garland
- Hammered silver round tray
- Vintage milk glass bud vases
It’s pretty hard to believe all of our furniture in our dining room came from Craigslist and we made it over with just paint and drop cloth fabric… and a hot glue gun. 😉
You can see the makeovers for all of our dining room furniture here too:
- DIY upholstered dining chairs makeover
- China cabinet makeover
- Weathered oak top dining table makeover
- Rope wrapped chandelier makeover
Next stop on the Holiday Entertaining Tour is Cedar Hill Farmhouse! If you’ve never visited Anita over there before, do it! Her style is amazing.
Monday’s posts:
Designthusiasm | Decor Gold Designs | My Soulful Home
Kelley Nan | Driven by Decor | The Enchanted Home
Tuesday’s posts:
Shabbyfufu | CitrineLiving | French Country Cottage
Maison Decor | Sand and Sisal | Town and Country Living
Wednesday’s posts:
Bless’er House | Cedar Hill Farmhouse | Design, Dining and Diapers
Maison de Pax | So Much Better With Age | Zevy Joy
Thursday’s posts:
Ella Claire | Buckets of Burlap | Randi Garrett Design
Savvy Southern Style | Stone Gable | ZDesign at Home
Friday’s Posts:
On Sutton Place | Finding Home Farms | Life On Virginia Street
Setting for Four | Sunny Side Up | The Wood Grain Cottage
Peace, love, and boundless candlelight, friends!
Oh my goodness! I adore your Christmas tablescape! My sweet Papa also had a rose garden that he lovingly tended. When it became too much for him to care for he donated them to our church. Now the roses are in a huge bed that runs down the front of the church. It makes my heart SO happy to see them!
I’ve got to clear off my dining room table and set it up for Christmas dinner this afternoon. Thanks so much for the inspiration!
That is SO sweet, Ashley! That would make my heart so happy too. Hope you and your family had a great Christmas!
1. I love everything about this! So, so pretty.
2. Your first paragraph about shoving dried up markers and leftovers had me rolling because, TRUTH!!
Haha! Right?! Life with kids is so far from perfect, but that’s also the beauty of it, I guess. 🙂
Lauren, it’s all so beautiful!
Hugs, Jamie
Thanks, girl! Hugs!
Such a pretty table Lauren and the story about your grandfather and the roses was so sweet!
Thank you so much, Jennifer!
Lauren, I really enjoyed this post and your blog in general. You speak to me with your decorating style. I’m sure if I lived in NC we would be buds:-) Love your humor. I’m a fan of using sentimental things in my décor as well and just so happen to have a box of bud vases just waiting to copy this idea 🙂 Thanks for being so inspiring!
Thank you so much, Amy! So glad you’re finding inspiration here. We can still be friends from afar. 🙂
Lauren this was so beautiful and inspiring friend! I love the wreaths on the backs of the chairs!
Thank you so much, Annie! Your tour was STUNNING!
Lauren,
What a beautiful table and a charming tribute to your grandfather and his roses! The vases look delightful repurposed as candlesticks and the greenery is stunning played off the natural linens on the table. Lovely!!
Lory
Thank you, Lory! I loved being a part of this tour. Thank you so much for hosting it!
This is so beautiful, Lauren. And what a lovely way to remember your grandparents. As soon as I saw the bud vases as candle holders, I immediately thought of a St. Lucia Christmas ring.
Thank you, Jennifer! I’m so glad it translates as St. Lucia. Exactly what I was going for. 🙂
I love your table, Lauren! I’m not sure what detail is my favorite…those bud vases are perfect and then the wreaths on the chairs are so classic! I love how vibrant it all is, gorgeous room, gorgeous setting!
Thank you so much, Tamara! Your tour was absolutely gorgeous. (As it always is.) 🙂
The tour is great! Everyone pulled out all the stops! It is ironic to find this blog topic today as I set my first table using my Christmas dishes just last night! I lean towards traditional red & green: red & green plaid table cloth, green place mats, holly decorated cream colored dishes, and pine cone decorated napkins. It was great fun to kick off the season! I was going to wait until December 1, but just couldn’t!
On a more technical note, I found the format of this tour much easier to follow than the Christmas Trees. Was it set up differently? Maybe it was just me having a computer-illiteracy day! Keep up the good work!
Thank you, Karen! Everyone did do a fabulous job. I always blown away by this greatly talented blogging community. I’m not sure about the technical format, but everything looks okay on my end. My site just did an update, so maybe it was experiencing something weird on the Christmas tree day?
Love the multiple candle holders….and pretty much everything else! Happy holidays to you…
Janet
Thank you so much, Janet! Happy holidays to you too!
Those place card holders are sooo cute!! Pretty table 🙂
Thank you, Denise! Couldn’t believe they were in the dollar spot!
Love the bud vases as candle holders, how fun is that. Such a beautiful tablesetting.
Thank you, Marty!