Weddingbee Blog

A few months ago, I started playing with the centerpieces. I already bought a bunch of vases from CB2 and West Elm to use and had just finished collecting some super fun fabric to use as table runners.

Here are the results of the first go around:

I felt really BLAH! about my attempts. I kind of liked 3 and 4, but not really. I needed to go back to the drawing board and come up with something more. I wanted simple, but there’s just not enough to fill the space.

After my failed attempt at centerpieces a few months ago, I decided to put away the vases and the fabric, and let them be for awhile. I figured looking at them fresh in a few months might help. This week I felt it was time to bust out the basket of vases and try again.

The problem this time was A) the yellow vases weren’t the right yellow and B) I didn’t have enough height. So I marched (well, drove) myself down to Goodwill to check out my options. If you are in need of cheap vases, can I suggest Goodwill? Mine has rows and rows of them and most sell for $0.69. I don’t mind paying full price for pieces I know I’ll use again like the flower girl basket or the fabric for the table runners (and our future quilt), but I knew tall vases would end up right back at Goodwill.

I scored 3 tall vases for under $3.00, plus a few holiday reads for the same price. I also picked up 6 short champagne glasses to toy with. So, for $10, I got 3 vases, 6 glasses and 5 books. Not too shabby.

If you are looking for mason jars, Goodwill has tons of them. Just FYI.

I bought those vases at West Elm late last year for our centerpieces. At the time, I didn’t really know what shade of yellow we’d be using. I thought the light-ish yellow would be fine. Fast forward 6 months, and I no longer like the shade to use for our wedding. I tried to sell them on Craigslist, but why would anyone want 20 dusty yellow vases?

this is the yellow

I needed to salvage these vases, but how? I was at my parents’ helping them move some stuff out of the garage when I spotted a can of gray spray paint. My Dad told me to take it, so I went home and wondered what I’d do with it. You can see where I’m going with this.

My attempts weren’t too bad. Spray painting glass vases was hard because of the shape and the fact that the paint has nothing to cling to. In retrospect, I should have tried a primer, but oh well.

Since the grey was a success, I headed over to Home Depot and picked up a can of yellow and another can of grey.

I also picked up a succulent, which ended up in the weird champagne glasses I picked up at Goodwill a few days before. A little spray paint and a succulent, and the glasses looked OK.

Did you customize any wedding items with a fresh coat of paint? What were they and how did they turn out?