Grand Little Place

This month the April tablescape workshop has a spring theme packed full of Easter table decor ideas! 

Spring is springing!  Here in the Midwest the rains have come, plants are beginning to peek through the winter ground and the sun comes often enough to remind us that warmer days are ahead.  The hopefulness of the season is inspiring – especially with Easter on the horizon.  Nothing can be more hopeful than the celebration of Christ rising from the grave!

This month as I was preparing the monthly tablescape I wanted something new and fresh for the centerpiece.  Pretty quickly I decided on assembling a fresh flower arrangement.  Spring and Easter are synonymous to me with flowers, so a floral centerpiece it was!  I purchased 2 bouquets of flowers from my local grocery store for $5 each.  My goal with these tablescapes is never to show how you have to buy things to make a table and that’s why you’ve seen the last 3 months me use house plants, dried flowers and other items to create the centerpiece.  This month I wanted something special though and grocery store flowers did the trick!

After purchasing the flower bundles I shopped my house for any and all things spring colored – which to me meant pastels.  I had a tablecloth that had been destined for donation that ended up in my ‘shopping basket’ along with a mix of pink candles, colored glassware, floral china, yellow patterned napkins and a special vintage auction find – Easter bunny napkin rings.  I try to keep holiday specific items like that to a minimum (except for Christmas, I pull out all the stops then) but these were too darling to pass up for Easter table decor – even though they were just a set of 4.

Because my table is a large slab with no leaves and I often find myself unable to find linens that sit well on it I go back to an old trick time and time again – placing the tablecloth diagonal on the table.  You’ve seen me do this in January and February (usually with non-tablecloth linens).  This is a great styling trick to have up your sleeve!  It creates movement, visual interest and dimension on your table and stops it from becoming the dreaded ‘block’ in the middle of the room.

Once again colored candles prove to be worth their weight and add a bold statement to the table.  Colored candles are a tablescape staple in my book.

After a few months of neutral/low color tables I was ready for lots of color play this month.  I kept the same double placemat look from March because I love the added green fringe under the neutral woven placemats.  The silver chargers are always a staple and this month I topped them with one of my favorite china plates.  These are white with a small green Greek key border.  They are so versatile with just enough detail to keep it interesting.  The dessert rose salad plates are the perfect companion to them and provide a great color splash on the table.

Look at these sweet bunny napkin rings!  The cuteness had me at hello.  And can you really have Easter table decor without any bunnies?!  For the napkins I added these faded yellow ones that have just a hint of pattern.  There is enough yellow/peach in the tablecloth for them to coordinate and also connect into the gold glassware.  The woven water tumblers are another favorite of mine that I often repeat.  They are great stand alone additions but the repeated texture from the place settings make me grab them time after time.

NOW, let’s talk FLOWERS!  A more recent love affair of mine is flower arranging and to be honest, it took me by surprise.  Historically I have never enjoyed grocery store or unarranged flowers because they always looked….well…unarranged!  I have a reel coming up on Instagram but here are a few non-expert tips on how to arrange grocery store flowers:

Quick tips for arranging grocery store flowers:

• Buy more flowers than you think you’ll need, minimum 2 bundles
• Buy greenery filler OR clip some from your yard – grab more than you think you’ll need.  THIS was the main thing I never knew to do!
• Strip all the petals/stems from the flower/greenery from the bottom, only leaving the top flower or 1/3 of greenery
• Fill vase half way with water
• Add greenery to your vase perimeter
• Begin adding flowers symmetrically (if you add a carnation on one end, add a matching one to the other) and work your way around the vase this way until the bottom ‘layer’ is filled using the largest flowers first
• Once the greenery and base flowers have been added use the smaller and one-off flowers to fill in the gaps.  If there are more gaps stick in greenery!
• DONE!

Once my arrangement was done I placed it on the table only to feel that it was not taking up enough visual presence. it was too low – too small – amongst the candles and place settings.  The arrangement was good but needed something, it needed to be bigger, higher.  The wheels started turning and out of the corner of the eye I spied my ‘shopping basket’!  A few paperback books stacked in the bottom of the basket and topped with a small food tray did the job and created the perfect – textured – pedestal for the centerpiece.

April’s Easter table decor is my favorite tablescape to date for the year!  The colors, texture and pattern play perfectly usher in the season and create the right amount of fullness for my eyes to dance across.  I can’t wait to see what you all come up with!  Tag or send me your pics so I can feature them on my Instagram stories!  Connect with me on Instagram here!

Happy Easter my friends!

Catch up on all of the 2022 Tablescape workshops here:

• March Tablescape
• February Tablescape
• January Tablescape
• What is a Tablescape anyways?  2022 Tablescape Workshops!

 

For more inspiration check out these tablescapes too!

• Easter in Quarentine 2020
• Elegant Thanksgiving Tablescape
• Using Vintage China for Place Settings
• Thanksgiving Tablescape

 

Don’t forget to pin!