DIY Table Decorations

We had our engagement party last weekend at a local pub, it was pretty last minute although as I knew I was going to be away on my birthday I had already planned an informal meal/drinks on the Sunday already with a few people. We just made it more of an 'event' and invited lots of Toms family and friends as well.

I spent most of last week sorting out who was coming, booking the room and sorting menu choice but on Saturday managed to whip up some last minute table decorations.

I have a collection of jars that I keep for things like this (Tom was amazed I finally used them as I've had them ages!) so I thought I'd make 2 types of decoration, one for flowers and one for candles. I went into town on the Friday and picked up my materials

The stuff on the left is all from various pound shops, some organza, ribbon, balloons, mini pegs, paint (I also later got some table confetti and banners). The candles are all from Wilko, the small ones were £1 each, the large ones were £1.70 and the packs of 3 were £1.75.

I started with the painted jars, squeezing the paint into the inside of the jar and moving it around with a foam brush. I had hoped to get them all a light blue colour by mixing the blue and white paint but the first one came out marbled and I liked that better!

I left them all drying upside down to let any excess paint drip out (note: because of the paint being quite thick they take forever to dry and were actually still wet on Sunday when we were using them, so if you're trying similar do them further in advance!) then moved onto the candle decorations. My plan was to wrap the jars in the organza fabric add the ribbon and voilà! The first one I tried sticking down the organza to the jar but it didn't stick very well and I discovered wasn't really needed

These first 2 I also added in another sheet of organza but the finished article was a bit too fussy for my liking and since there were going to candles inside and the material kept going over the top (Fire Hazard!) I kept the rest of them a bit more simple!

I just wrapped the jars in the organza and tied the ribbon around the top and the bottom to secure it and add decoration

At this point I actually wasn't too keen on these bit I figured once they had candles lit and were glowing softly they would look prettier.

I had some ribbon left over so glued some around the top of the painted jars

And here they are in action

My mum very kindly got us the balloon bouquet

I ended up not using most of the candles, only using the small ones from the packs of 3 to put in the jars, as I felt we had enough and there were a lot of people eating so didn't want to crowd the table too much.

I really like the painted jars and have kept them, I added in a plastic cup to each one to put the flowers in. 

The decorations in total including the balloons and banners only cost £23.60 as it was mostly from pound shops!

We had a lovely party, with a meal and then a game of skittles as we had hired the back room with the skittle alley in and an evening of (far to much) drinking! 

I will probably not talk too much about weddings etc on here (we don't even have a date set yet or anything although looking at next year) although any projects like this that could translate to a non-wedding/engagement event or home décor (I'm going to find a home for some of those painted jars in our home) I will share. I'm sure there will be a lot of projects to do for the wedding and some of them will be of interest.