Decorating on a dime

21 Feb Decorating on a dime

Posted at 15:57h in finishing touches by
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I really only have one finished room in my house. It’s our formal dining room and for months I have been trying to figure out how to decorate it. I received a lot of crystal from my wedding shower and one great gift was this very pretty tall hurricane candle holder with matching candlesticks. This is the centerpiece of my antique, almost 100 year old dining table.

My first decorating task was the windows. I decided I wanted to have a scarf to add some formality to the room. I don’t know if you have every priced a scarf for your window, but they run from $50 to $200 and honestly most of the material for the lower cost ones look cheap. Also, our window is large so I needed more yardage then the standard size of 7 yards that most scarfs come in. My solution: make it myself. I purchased 9 yards of this very pretty, shiny gold fabric from Hobby Lobby for $20. I don’t have a sewing machine, so I used iron-on hem tape to make the edges. The rod was also from Hobby Lobby and with a coupon I paid $14 for it. Total cost $36.

The next task was to figure out what to put on our almost 100 year old antique hutch. I found these tall candle holders at Garden Ridge for $15 that really went well with the hurricane candle holder. I filled one of the holders with some pusywillows add dried branches ($5 Hobby Lobby). The other two holders I filled with white candles ($3.99 for four at Hobby Lobby) and white sand ($2 at Hobby Lobby), but it looked so plain. I needed somehow to tie them into the gold curtain, so I purchased some ribbon ($3 Hobby Lobby) that was the exact match to my curtain to wrap around the bottom of each candle. The are secured with tape in the back, so if I get sick of this look I can easily change it. Total cost: $28.99

Now what to put on the other end of the hutch? This became quite the problem because I just couldn’t figure out what to do. I had a plant sitting there for a while, but I was afraid of it making a water mark on the hutch. I don’t like fake plants, I much prefer the earthier look of dried plants, but it just looks too drab with the crystal. One day searching for ideas on how to decorate I stumbled across this photo from a wedding decorating site:

I thought, how perfect! It combines the crystal theme of the room with a more earthy feel that I prefer. I purchased the branch from Save On Crafts.com for $9.99 and crystals from Cristalier.com for $5.95 and wallah! The other half of my hutch has now been decorated! Total cost: $15.94


Lastly, I found this mirror at Gordman’s for $20. It has yet to be hung on the wall, but it goes great in the center of the hutch. I think once it is on the wall it will make the room look larger.

Total cost for the room: $100.93

~Beth