Decorating with Coffee Beans

I saw this idea in a Canadian Living magazine sometime in the last couple of years and have always meant to put it into practice while decorating but didn't get around to doing it until this year.  The idea is simple - just add whole coffee beans to your regular pieces of decor! 

Adding coffee beans to a candle platter adds texture.

My walls are NOT yellow.  Silly flash.

 In the photo above, I took a tall thin vase and filled it 4/5ths of the way with coffee beans.  I then took a tea light candle and nestled it into the centre of the top of the vase in the beans.  When it's lit, it looks like I have a candle made from coffee!

Do you have any other ideas of how you could use coffee beans to decorate? 

Tip:  My husband is what some may call a "coffee snob", so we always have whole bean coffee in the house.  The problem is that I can't use it for decorating since it is trop cher - to 'waste' his coffee in such a manner would be an insult to the coffee.  So, on a shopping trip at Wal Mart this fall I picked up the biggest, cheapest bag of coffee beans I could find, and used that. Upside?  Cheap way to spruce up your winter decorations!  Downside?  The coffee beans STINK.  They do NOT smell like delicious coffee.  My recommendation is that if you enjoy good coffee and you want to do this project, don't buy the cheapest stuff.  You don't have to buy the premium Starbucks beans, but get something 1 or 2 steps up from the cheapest.
Note: I have a 10 month old who likes to get into EVERYTHING and eat EVERYTHING.  I keep the candle tray on our dining table during the day, and once the little man has gone to bed, it moves to the coffee table to be lit.  Make sure that you keep the coffee beans away from your little people, as they're a very tempting size to be put into the mouth!