This centerpiece came about entirely by accident.  I am not the most organized when we entertain, my whole focus seems to revolve around the food, and more often than not I can’t even remember to put napkins on the table.

So, it’s New Year’s Eve and our guests are arriving in a half hour.  It suddenly occurs to me that a centerpiece might be in order considering we were having a fancier, sit down, food plated kind of dinner.  Somehow, I still forgot the napkins, but this time we had a centerpiece.  You know, because that is just so vital.

Anyway, I knew I wanted candlelight with dinner and I didn’t have any flowers or greenery available for a centerpiece so the obvious next step was to use the candles as the centerpiece.  I don’t know why this has never occurred to me before, it’s such a simple idea.

So I took an antique platter that I found awhile back for $10, gathered together different candle holders from around the house and placed them around the plate.  As you can see, I placed some parchment paper under the two pillars, because as soon as I lit them they begin to drip.  I wasn’t wanting to clean wax off of an antique plate, no thank you.  We can sacrifice in the looks department in the interest of easier cleanup.

The second time I burned them the candles had stopped dripping and I could remove the parchment.

    

Here is a look at it in the light of day.  Since this photo was taken, I found one more really cute candle holder at Pier 1 for $1.95 that I added to the plate. It’s been fun to customize this centerpiece by changing the candles holders and or adding extra elements like beads or flowers.

This was a really easy project and one of my more favorite because I didn’t have to buy anything.  Sometimes it is good for creativity to make use what you already have.