Gotta Love Target Clearance

A few years ago I refinished an old kitchen table that my grandparents gave to us when they moved. I stripped, sanded, and painted and over the past few years it got pretty beat up. Last year I was in the domestics area of my Target and was aggravated when I noticed that a team member had dumped a large, ugly cardboard box on the focal endcap. I looked at the label and was shocked to find that it was the counter-height table that I had admired from a few months before. It had either been returned or was found stowed away somewhere and was now 75% off! I waited until the end of the day and since nobody else had purchased it, nevermind looked at the ugly box, I decided it was a sign that it was meant for me. (This was my justification when I arrived home and had to tell Martin I had a large piece of furniture in the back of my Jeep.) Originally over $200, I scooped up this table for a mere $40! We had no chairs and when we looked the ones we wanted were going for close to $400. Martin and I just could not fathom spending ten times the amount on chairs that we spent on the table. It would have defeated the purpose of buying a table on clearance, that's for sure. So we tucked our table away in the storage area of the garage and figured when the time was right we would bring it back out.
I came home a few weeks ago to find Martin had been browsing the web and had found matching chairs on Target.com on clearance for a little over $40 each! For those of you who have looked into buying counter-height chairs...this is a steal! We decided it would be our Christmas present to one another and ordered them. They arrived a few days later and Martin unwrapped, inspected, and assembled four beautiful chairs that perfectly match our table. So now we have a beautiful expensive-looking dining set and we got the whole thing for over 60% off.

Winter Centerpiece by tulip630 on Polyvore.com

Once Martin assembled the set, and we arranged it how we wanted it in our sun-room, I needed to come up with a centerpiece. I started with the pitcher, then I pulled out these artificial berry flowers that I use in some capacity each Christmas. It looked horrible with the plastic stems just standing in the pitcher for all to see. I mean, we all know they are fake but it was so gosh-darn obvious. Filler! I needed filler. I looked at my collection of beach shells, sand, ornaments, but nothing seemed to "go". Then I started looking through the pantry and voila! ... pasta. A box of pasta shells was just what I was looking for. I poured it into the bottom of the pitcher and arranged the berries and it was perfect, well almost. The pitcher wasn't wide enough and was lacking some balance so I mentally ran through my mats and decorative trivets and then thought, it just needs some white to tie in with the white berries. A white china plate was exactly what it needed. So here is the centerpiece and here it is on our beautiful new dining set! :) (You'll have to excuse the clarity, it is from my cell phone.)