Knockin off Pottery Barn…it’s a good thing!

(Post from the Past)

I’ve been feeling some anxiety because I’ve noticed that the blogging world has started to burst forth in all it’s autumnal glory…like that..autumnal?? Great word isn’t it? We learned that studying Legend of Sleepy Hollow in a literature class I’m teaching…yes I teach too. I am homeschool mom…hear me roar.

Anyway, I started seeing all of these beautiful fall decorations, fall photos, fall craft ideas…and I began to feel like the girl who’s always late to the party. I had nothing, nada, zip, zilch fall decorations up. So my slightly competitive, type A personality reared it’s ugly head and I headed out to the storage building to find my fall buckets. It happened to be 85 degrees here that day, so I was not feeling the “fall mood” at all but I knew this task must be done to calm the “autumnal anxiety” I was exeriencing. I have collected many, many, many fall decorations over the years…much to Bama Boys chagrin. But, I was in the mood to try a few new things…and Bama Boy was in the mood for me to NOT spend a lot of money.

I had read how Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick had found a great way to mimic these:

They are $59 at Pottery Barn! Good grief!! Sarah was able to replicate them from items found at the Dollar Tree, for $2 each! I had to see it to believe it, so I headed to my nearest one and lo and behold there were the items needed….lots of them! I guess no one in my nearest “large town” reads Thrifty Decor Chick, because there was a bounty of the items I needed.

I practiced putting them together while standing in the aisle…causing Bama Boy much anxiety when he realized I was balancing glass items on top of each other in the store. I had to gently remind him…THAT THEY WERE A DOLLAR EACH!! And, I’m sure we could afford to replace them if my clumsy alter ego decided to show up.

So with giddiness and a sense of superiority over all those poor chumps paying $59 for a hurricane vase; I collected up several of the items I needed and skipped with glee up to the Dollar Tree counter. My husband, on the other hand, was pretending to not be associated with the crazy woman who balances glassware in the aisle and snickers to herself while checking out. For $9 and the addition of pumpkins I already owned, I was able to make 3 of the “all glass” hurricane vases for my dining room table, and a twist on one for my mantle. And I will share with you how easy-peasy these really are.

In the collage above you can see that this project is more than simple to do. You literally just stack the hurricane top on the glass candle holder. You can use a small amount of hot glue to hold them together, or do like I did and use a little putty. That way, if I need to store them I can still take them apart. You can put candles in them as they are traditionally used or any type of decor. I will stack artificial lemons in these when not using them seasonally. I wanted to try a fun variation for my fireplace mantel. Something a little more chunky and with black. So I found two wooden candle pedestals at the Dollar Tree and started playing around with them, and came up with this:

I liked having a touch of the color black on my mantle, and I thought the thickness of the base went better with all of the chunky fruit and gourds. I already had in my bottomless bucket of fall decor all of the artificial fruit, and purchased the real pumpkin in the middle for $4 at Wal-Mart. I loved that it was a washed out orange and subdued.

I had so much fun making the hurricane vases and have so many other ideas for their use. If you are a reader of mine and in my area, our local Dollar Tree still has plenty of these hurricane vases and the candle holders in stock…just give me a running start so I can grab me a few more before they’re all gone…cause I’m already thinking about all of their uses for Christmas!

Let me know if you make some of these for yourself or if you come up with any variations of this project.

Comments

LambAround says

April 5, 2011 at 4:11 PM

Although I do love the content of this post, the title is my favorite part. Thanks for the smile! 🙂

Londa Fiser says

April 9, 2013 at 9:14 PM

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