Valentine's Day Table Setting

After decorating our glass vases for Valentine's Day, I was itching to create a table setting as well.  I decided that I was going to challenge myself and only use things I already had lying around the house, especially since Valentine's Day isn't a major holiday in our house, like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter are.  

I still wanted to do something special though, because Valentine's Day has always meant more to us than a commercial holiday since it was very close to when we first started dating (five years on February 20th)--in fact our second and third dates were on Valentine's Day--tomorrow's Remember When will explain more!

So, I went shopping in my closet and our dining room hutch, and this is what I came up with.

 

I used the white runner I purchased back in November and pulled out some red place mats that I've had since I was a junior in college.  They've moved with me from Omaha to California back to Omaha and now to St. Louis.  J and I have eaten many meals on these place mats so it was fun to incorporate them into the table setting.  I pulled away the two other chairs in the dining room because this table setting is just for two!

I layered each place setting with the silver chargers (also a November purchase) and a white plate.

For place cards, I used some scrapbooking materials I had on hand, some cream ribbon and two champagne corks (we save all of our corks and store them in a vase in our hutch). 

 

Our Valentine's Day dinner will of course include some sort of bubbly so I thought the champagne corks added a nice, romantic touch!

 

Woods of course thought they were great toys and relished in knocking them off the table and playing with them.  They have since been relegated to a drawer and will be returned to the table when we have our V-Day dinner.

For the center of the table, I grabbed a milk glass vase I bought a while back at Value Village and filled it with more of the rose petals I bought at The Dollar Tree last week.  Woods also enjoyed playing with these petals, so I placed a candle in the center of it to hopefully prevent him from burying his face in it and tossing them everywhere!  It's working...for now...

The candle I used is not just any candle, but a candle we received at our Engaged Encounter retreat last year when we were going through marriage preparations for our wedding.  It was a wonderful weekend and the candle is a great expression of all the promises and prayers we made together on that weekend.  It also served as a gentle reminder to dig it out and use it every Sunday for our Sunday night dinners together, which we had gotten out of the habit of doing the last few months!

Since we had a white-silver-red theme going on, I pulled out our candlesticks from the hutch and added them for a final flourish, just in time for J to come home and admire my handwork!

What do you think?  Are you decorating for Valentine's Day?  Do you have any big plans, even if it's just with your girlfriends?  Do tell!