Glamourous St. Patrick's Day Tablescape on a Budget

Welcome to Tablescape Thursday hosted by Susan from, "Between Naps on the Porch". The feature invites bloggers to create a weekly tablescape and feature it on their website. Be sure to check out the lovely tablescapes. They are jam packed with many ideas to use in your own home.

This week, I created a glamourous St. Patrick's Day tablescape. The challenge I gave myself this week was to create a tablescape for around $5. I live in a small apartment so I don't have a lot of storage space to store decorations for every holiday so I try to purchase very little. I firmly believe that most of the time we have plenty of things around our house to create something lovely, we just need to use them in a different way. Once you get used to being more creative, you will find lots of things that you can use in your own tablescapes. Let's get started.

I've gathered up a few items from around the house. I have a glittery St. Patrick's Day hat that Dear Son wore to school last year. I have some green bracelets and necklaces, a watch, and a few pieces of green clover jewelry-these were all things that my sister had and was going to throw out (I asked for them to use in my tablescape!). I had some green marbles, a silver picture frame, a silver dish and a crystal candleholder. The goblets I received from a friend to use for tablescaping. They are glass I am sure but had the look of Irish crystal so I thought they would be perfect for today. One problem I had was that I didn't have any special plates for St. Patrick's Day so I wasn't sure what I would do to make them look different.

I had attempted to use green carnations in the crystal bowls however I was unable to find them this week. Then I tried to locate two green salad plates however that didn't work out. I went to Michael's and found these foam glittered shamrocks for $1.00 and decided to use them on the plates. The dinner plate, salad plate, cup and saucer are, "Spode Mansard" fine bone china; the pattern has since been discontinued. I absolutely love the pattern. I purchased these around twelve years ago.

Next, I took the pedestal from my cake plate and added the glittered hat from last year. The cake plate gives height to the tablescape. I stuck a shamrock pin in the hat to embellish the hat. Unable to find the carnations, I used green apples instead; total cost was $2.00. Plus the apples are edible so I don't need to find storage for them!

I took a green bracelet with the shamrocks and put it around the crystal hurricane. When the candle is lit, the flame shines through the bracelet. I stuck a foam shamrock on the base. I took a one of the metallic beaded necklaces and laid it in the crystal bowl beneath the apples. I would never wear any of this jewelry, but I knew it would be perfect for this tablescape. Sometimes, you just need a dash of color to reinforce your tablescape. When adding color to a tablescape or using color in a room, you should use that color a minumum of three times, otherwise the room or tablescape will look unbalanced. Above is a photo of the apples and the hurricane.

I wanted to use the picture frame. I knew I needed more green on the table with all of the white, so I purchased a St. Patrick's Day card for $2 and put it in the frame. To embellish the frame, I added more foam shamrocks on each of the four corners.

To fill out the table, I needed to add some sparkle. After all, if you are using candlelight, you want as many reflective accessories as possible. I tossed a few green glass marbles randomly on the table, added a watch piece and a few more of the foam shamrocks.

I took the other bracelets, that I was originally going to use as napkin rings and placed them around the candleholders to add a little more green to the table.
Finally, the finished table for $5.00! The apples were $2, the card for the picture frame was $2 and the green glitter shamrocks were $1. All that is left is to create an Irish dinner!

Have a wonderful St. Patrick's Day! Be sure to come back next week to see my "Birds of Paradise" tablescape. It is ultra feminine and very elegant.