Just in Time for Thanksgiving...How to Make Your Own Easy Centerpieces

I made these centerpieces for my recent birthday dinner party.  Here is how I did it.

1-Drink a lot of beer and wine (not at one time) and eat a bunch of spaghetti sauce and mayonnaise (also not at one time or even at the same meal).  Ok really you just need some bottles.  For some reason my husband had been stacking empty wine bottles beside the sink so I decided to go ahead and make something out of them.  Then I realized it had been awhile since I had cleaned the fridge so I went ahead and threw away some old mayo and salad dressing and pasta sauce and cleaned out those jars. 

2-Peel off the labels of the jars.  I used a tip that I learned here, and with some assistance from B, I removed the labels from the jars and bottles.

3-Buy some flowers.  I bought a mix of 4 different bunches from Harris Teeter.  I picked Fall colors since that was my theme.  I have heard great things about buying flowers at Trader Joes and Costco as well. 

4-Arrange the flowers and the jars so that they look amazing on your table/tables.  I decided to use green and brown jars on one table and clear jars on the other.  Then I had to arrange the flowers.  That was probably the hardest part.  Sometimes I'm not good at figuring out what looks good together but I think I did a decent job.  I went with single flowers in the tall glasses and groups of smaller flowers in the smaller mason jars.

And there you have it.  Lovely table centerpieces that are easy to make and not too costly.  (PS-I got more complements on the flowers than the giant pot roast I made.)

The Acorns Get Married-My Favorite Wedding Details

One of my best friends and former post-college roomie got married this past weekend (which you probably already know if you have been reading this blog).  Mrs. Acorn and I lived together after we graduated from college and both ended up moving back to our home town.  I moved back home (with my parents) because I made no life plan for myself while in college and therefore had no job.  Mrs. Acorn would call me every day and force me to update her on what I had done that day to secure myself employment.  After all, I would need a job before we could move out of our parent's homes and live together.  A loooooong 6 months later (no offense Mom and Dad) we found a cute little rental house and Mrs. Acorn, her giant dog Barkley, and I moved in.  It was a time of ups and downs.  I think after college we both had expectations of getting married, making tons of money and being super happy.  Instead we were both working at unexciting low paying jobs and were not having huge successes in the relationship department.  We also got robbed and discovered that killer bees (ok maybe not killer, but giant) had infested one of our walls.  We did have some awesome times though, especially after Beezus5 and Curly J also moved back to the Boro.  Eventually we both decided to move away.  Mrs. Acorn moved to Chapel Hill for grad school and I moved to Maryland to be with my now husband.  After her first year in grad school, Mrs. Acorn started dating Mr. Acorn.  Her whole outlook on life seemed to change for the better and I was super excited when they got engaged last December.

Now, my favorite wedding details.......

The wedding was held at The Hayloft in NC.  This place is really cool.  Mrs. Acorn's Sister-In-Law's family owns the place and restored it a few years back when Sister-In-Law got married to Mrs. Acorn's brother.

Some beautiful bridesmaids (and bride) in their beautiful bridesmaid jewelry standing in front of some hay after drinking some champagne (the bridesmaid jewelry did not ruin the wedding btw)...

Sister-In-Law/Wedding Coordinator made our bouquets and all the other flowers...

The cutest cake topper ever (featuring my old roomie Barkley and his new sister/wife Dixie).  This was custom made by Etsy seller Lynn's Little Creations...

The homemade hot sauce favors made by Sister-In-Laws family.  I took like 6 of these and am excited to try them out....

My favorite/exciting moments included.........

-Right after we hung up the wedding dress it fell off the hook and all the bridesmaids screamed and slammed the door shut so Mrs. Acorn would not know.  (All's well that ends well, right?)

-My shoe fell off right after I walked down the aisle and I had to struggle for about a minute to get it back on.  I could see my husband laughing at me.

-A bee jumped on my head during the scripture reading and I kept myself from screaming.

-The Minister's speech about the bride and groom being best friends.

-Mini Ham Biscuits!

-Mo Young gave my bouquet toss a shout out in her Maid of Honor Speech.

-Curly J, Beezus5, Mo Young, and myself somehow convinced Mr. Acorn to lay across our laps for some whimsical photos.  I really need a copy of this $hanzie!

-The Cake! It was strawberries and cream and quite tasty.  My husband had two pieces after getting approval from the bride

-This photo that I made my Dad take of me and B.  It started as a joke but then my dad seemed game to take the photo so I went with it.  Check out the cool corn fields in the background.

All in all a beautiful, hot, fun day of love!