Valentine's Centerpeice

  

I'm not into a lot of hearts and traditional stuff on Valentine's day.  Don't get me wrong, I love the decorations, they just don't go with my dining room.  I also don't like to bombard my hubby with too much girl stuff.  (I passed up a beautiful pink table cloth for the same reason.  It was nice...if I lived alone)  This centerpeice is my hommage to the holiday of valentines day. 

We don't do too much for this holiday because it falls exactly one week before my birthday.  We just aren't the type of people to go crazy two weeks in a row.  Our Valentine's is usually just a nice dinner cooked at home and an exchange of cards.  If Jeff buys me some flowers he gets bonus points ;)  (hint, hint)

But back to the centerpiece...

The first thing I did was to sparkle up some plastic fruit I found at Target.  I got the idea from Martha (gotta love her) but experimented on my own.  I'll be sure to do a post on how I did this in the future.  In the end Martha was right, the ones with only a little sparkle in the white look the best (I should have known).

I also kind of went crazy at Target and Home Goods and bought a bunch of stuff.  The little white vases that read, Live, Laugh, Love, were in the discount isle at the front of the store.  They only cost $2.50.  I have been looking for some white bud vases so these were perfect, and they fit righ into my Valentine's theme. 

The conversation hearts were a must.  How can you have Valentine's day without them.  That little candy bowl has become one of my favorite things I own.   I got it when I was a kid at a flea market in Martha's Vineyard.  I almost gave it away once (that was scary, I decided I was too old to have silly little candy trays, puft) but held onto it and I love it again. 

I have to show off my other two perchases at Home Goods:  The white cake stand and the two-tear candy tray.  Both were on sale for $10.  They had horrible ribbons in them, my hubby had no idea why I wanted them.   I bought some nice ribbon from Michael's and, voila, beautiful trays.  Jeff actually came up to me the next day and said he liked them now. 

The lemon squares were very important to me.  Somehow they needed to be there, but now looking back, I don't know.  Maybe I just wanted to bake them (I asked Jeff to take the rest of them to work so I wouldn't gorge myself). 

Here is one last shot of my centerpiece.  I was going for subtle...I might have overshot that one a little (hehe).