Red, Black, and White Book Centerpieces

I recently had the opportunity to decorate a table at a church/neighborhood dinner.  I am not necessarily the master decorator, but I do enjoy making my own home nice and looking through glossy magazines.  So, at first I panicked when given this task.  Were my dishes too faded?  Did I have pretty enough goblets?  Would it matter that one of the place mats would not be an exact match to the others.  What kind of flowers should I use?

All of these questions bombarded me, and I eventually bombarded my husband with tears.  I had a meltdown of sorts, and even came close to telling the person who had asked me that I could not complete the assignment.  I was not capable of decorating a table for a simple dinner!

Then my sister Afton started talking about her wedding décor.  She mentioned books, and from there I went crazy pinning book centerpieces on Pinterest.  The idea of book centerpieces spoke to my deepest love in the world, and I longed to go back twelve years and redecorate my own wedding.  How perfect books would have been!

After all of this pinning and pining, I realized that I could use books for my neighborhood dinner table centerpiece.  Because my dishes are white with black flowers and my place mats are red, I gathered all of the red, black, and white books from my shelves.  From there, I spent an hour or so arranging them in a square shape around a vase and tied each group with ribbon.  I became excited (instead of anxious) about decorating the table and here’s the result.

Thanks to my sister Ashley for helping me to edit the backgrounds on these pictures.  She is an aspiring and talented photographer, so I appreciate her help.  I am impressed with her passion for photography.

Book centerpieces are now my go to in any table decorating emergency.  I don’t think one will arise again, but you never know, and my sister has since decided against the book theme for her wedding.  However, I’m glad to have discovered this decorating trick that reflects my personality and is quite easy to accomplish.