ARE YOU READY FOR EASTER?

IF NOT, READ ON…

I’ve got 5 quick and easy centerpiece/sideboard/mantel ideas for you. You can be set for the Easter Bunny in 30 minutes or less. And best of all? Everything you need for these designs can be usually be found within the confines of one single strip mall. Think Target, Michael’s or AC Moore (or whatever the nearest craft store happens to be) and your local grocery store. That thought is worth its weight in gold eggs!!

EASY AND FESTIVE EASTER DESIGNS:

LET’S DECORATE!

CENTERPIECE, MANTEL AND SIDEBOARD IDEAS

SIMPLE CENTERPIECES

URNS AND EGGS—EASY TO CREATE, EASY TO MODIFY

BUNNY ON THE TABLE—A BRIGHT, SPRINGY CENTERPIECE—FUN FOR EVERYONE

FLOWERS AND IVY—SIMPLE AND STUNNING

TULIPS ON PARADE—EASY AND EFFORTLESS

ELEGANT DISPLAY—NOT SO SIMPLE, BUT A GREAT “ONE AND DONE” IDEA!

Urns and Eggs

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Urn or other container—like a deep bowl—with an open top.

• Easter Egg Wreath or enough Easter Eggs to surround the urn or bowl in a ring around the base. (I usually make my own wreaths, but I was short on time and saw one at Target, so I grabbed it!! Use timesavers when you can, right?!? Especially when the season is a short one…)

• Reindeer Moss—You should be able to find this at any craft store.

• Easter Eggs—If you don’t feel like doing them yourself, check out Target or Pier One or any craft or grocery store. I’m sure the latter two will have PLENTY of eggs to sell you!

• Glue

• Bubble Wrap

HOW TO:

• Fill your urn or other container with bubble wrap. Be sure that the base of the container is small enough to allow for a 15.5” wide (and 3” high) wreath to surround the base with some room to spare. (NOTE: I am a design rulebreaker, so I use my outdoor urns inside. Yes, I do. On my dining room table, in fact. But I also live in a 200+ year old farmhouse that we restored from top to bottom, and my dining room table is an antique Provencal farm table. So it lends itself to rulebreaking. But if you’re in a rush and don’t have an urn (a decorative urn rather than one for use outside!), use a simple bowl. You’re going to dress it up!!)

• Fill the urn or bowl with bubble wrap so that you create a dome. Tape the bubble wrap to the container so that it stays put. Just make sure that whatever you use to attach the bubble wrap to the container does not harm your container. Do the usual tests to be sure you’re not going to take the finish off of your pretty container. (Lightbulb moment…I wonder if you could use painters tape? I’ve never tried…if you try it, let me know how it goes!)

• Glue pieces of reindeer moss onto the bubble wrap, making sure to keep the dome shape. Regular old craft glue should be fine for this purpose. Just make sure that it’s clear drying glue.

• Once your moss is firmly in place, take a handful of eggs and glue those to the moss. (Pretty easy so far, right?)

• Grab your wreath (or your additional eggs, if you don’t have a wreath, don’t have the time or energy to go full Martha and make one yourself…or if you just don’t want a wreath, thank you very much….) and center it on your table. Obviously, if you don’t want a wreath, just skip this step!

• Place your container—centered—inside the ring of the wreath (or the ring created by your eggs, if you’re not using a wreath).

• Take your moss and fill in any space that you might happen to have between the base of your container and your wreath or your ring of eggs.

• Admire your handiwork!

2. Bunny on the Table

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Any bunny—I had no idea that I had any bunnies anywhere in this house, but lo and behold, I found the grapevine bunny you see below, a couple of ceramic bunnies and a cardboard bunny. They do multiply, it’s true!!

• Tete a Tete Mini Daffodils (3, 5, or any odd number) and Grape Hyacinths (3, 5 or any odd number). You could also include some cut flowers and/or ivy for added oomph!

• Fun Ribbon—I used 3 yards of hot pink ribbon (big surprise on the hot pink, right?)

• Moss—All of my Easter designs are heavy on moss. Moss is like duct tape—it has a million uses and can hide a multitude of mistakes, holes or mechanics missteps.

• Mat for the bunny and the plants and flowers—You guessed it, mine is moss, though you can’t see it in the photos.

• Eggs, of course!

HOW TO:

• Once you have your supplies, you’re basically done. Just place your bunny and surround him with your plants, flowers and eggs! Embellish bunny however you’d like (or not at all). With my rabbit, I added eyes and a nose and used some white pompoms for his tail.

3. Flowers and Ivy

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Three potted springtime plants/flowers

  I used lettuce in two of my cachepots and purple, yellow and white Violas for the main attraction. But you could use literally anything—Ivy, Forget Me Not, Dusty Miller, Pansy, Fern, whatever you see that screams “SPRING” to you. (By the way, you can also use lettuce in the Bunny on the Table design—it looks great!)

• Your favorite cachepots—If you don’t have any that work well together thematically, this is your excuse to get some! Make sure you get the right size for your potted plants/flowers.

• Moss—Preferably a variety of grassy moss as opposed to the Reindeer moss. But use what you have. It’ll look great.

• Cake Plate—Totally optional. Just raises the largest cachepot up a bit above the other two that will surround it. But not so high as to be a conversation killer with those across the table.

HOW TO:

• Pretty self explanatory! THAT’S how EASY all of this can be!! Just put your plants into your pots, top with moss/grass and arrange on your table. Totally gorgeous! And requires literally 5 minutes of your time—or less—depending upon whether you’ve already got what you need at home. And as a bonus, you can plant all of these in your garden or window boxes/containers once it’s warm enough outside.

4. Tulips on Parade

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Tulips—At least two bunches, but I’d go for three or four, because you’ll always need more flowers than you think you will. That’s just a fact. You have to account for breakage and also for the last minute determination that you “need” another arrangement. This happens when you see how pretty your first arrangement looks and realize that it would look even better if it had a friend….trust me. Go for simple, double, fringed or parrot tulips. Or mix and match.

• Simple greens for interest (or not). It’s good to have greens in case you end up with a lot of broken tulips. It happens. I like using Bupleurum because it’s not too green and it lightens up arrangements because it’s so delicate and wispy looking.

• Any Container—small pitcher, carafe or round vessel. Be creative. Just be sure to remember that you will want to be able to see and hold conversations over the flowers, so avoid any container that might be too high.

HOW TO:

• Gather the tulips and snip the bottoms of them before putting them into your container. This just cleans them up, exposing fresh tissue and cells that will allow for rehydration once they hit your water. (And don’t forget—each time you change your water, snip about half an inch to an inch off of your stems so they get a nice clean start with the new water. It will prolong their staying power!)

• Loosely hold the tulips (or maybe I should say “wrangle the tulips”, as they can be quite the unruly little guys!) in one hand and disperse the greens throughout them with your other hand.

• Put them into your container and let them do what they want to do. Get rid of leaves that are broken or cracked and let the others just jumble together however they land. ‘Cause you are DONE!

5. Elegant Display (Note: Don’t bother with this one unless you’re used to creating arrangements. Not because you can’t do it…of course you can...but it might be stress inducing, it will definitely be messy, and it involves Oasis, which is its own beast and better saved for another day!)

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Medium sized Revere bowl or other pretty bowl that’s deep enough to hold a flower arrangement without leaking or spilling.

• Oasis—Because it’s faster than working with grids or chicken wire. Normally, I prefer water alone, and when I have to, I’ll create a floral netting pillow and use that—or a frog. But for this, efficiency is key. So Oasis it is!

• Flowers—If I’m not planning a trip to the flower market, I’ll usually buy my flowers at Whole Foods. After surveying all of the grocery stores within a 10 mile radius of my house, Whole Foods is the only place that consistently seems to have a good supply of fresh (and pretty) flowers. For this design, all of my flowers came from Whole Foods. Sticking to the strip mall mentality for this post. Strictly “one trip, all supplies”!

• I don’t use “recipes” per se because all of my designs are custom—each and every one is different and created for a specific person or event. However, I totally get the idea of having recipes, and if I owned a floral shop, I might find that recipes are the most cost effective way to do business. Until that point, I’ll continue with my bespoke designs. Because I knew I would do this post, I wrote down the flowers that I used within it. I suppose it’s somewhat of a recipe, though I didn’t count the stems of each flower that went into the design. Let’s just say that I have nothing but stragglers left, so I used almost everything. Here’s the list…!!

  • Mini Hydrangea

  • Garden Rose

  • Peony

  • Spray Rose

  • Lisianthus

  • Bupleurum

  • Ruscus

  • Carnations (Much maligned, but they do have an important place in the floral world! I’ll write a post about them some time…)

  • Stargazer Lily (I prefer Double Oriental, but this worked well)

  • Scabiosa

  • Alstroemeria (Not my fave, but it’s a great filler flower and lasts forever!)

  • Veronica

  • Godetia (Be careful with these, because the petals are super thin…super thin.)

HOW TO:

• If you have some experience arranging flowers, go for it! If not, and if you REALLY want to try this, I’d hop onto YouTube and see what you can find for guidance. While I’m working to launch some courses in late 2019, that won’t help for Easter!!

• If you decide to try this as a beginner, I would go for the tape grid method. Create a grid with floral (or scotch, which will last long enough for your purposes) tape, and use the little squares to guide you as you place your flowers. Just have fun with it!! After all, it’s not rocket science. Did I already say that?

MOSSY MANTEL

This works well with the Urns and Eggs Centerpiece. Or with almost any Easter decor, I would venture to guess. It definitely works with all of the designs I’ve created for you!!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Reindeer Moss—I can’t tell you how much to get—it all depends on the size of your spaces and also on how heavy handed you are with the moss. I am extremely heavy handed, so I go through a lot of it! You’ll always have a use for it, so buy more than you think you should.

• Mossy Branches—Optional. I happened to have some from last year, so I used them. But don’t make a special trip just for the branches. (I just looked, and Target carries a version or these that look like they’re pretty. They’re not real, as mine are, but that might be a good thing! Mine will probably stain my mantel….we do a lot of mantel repainting around here!)

• Easter Eggs—If you’re at Target, they have egg garlands, and those would work well for this project. Otherwise, use whatever eggs you have on hand, as long as they are hard boiled or faux (or as I call them in my irreverent way, “fake”!!)

HOW TO:

• If you use branches, put those onto the mantel first. No magic to this…just place them so that you can see them from either end of your mantel.

• Simultaneously place eggs and moss so that you fill your mantel.

• Done!! Give yourself a pat on the back….look how creative you are!!

SIMPLE SIDEBOARD

This is an “extra” that you can choose to do to complement your table and pull your Easter look together. But it’s not as pressing as getting your table finished.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Moss Mat—But of course!

• Easter Eggs

• Reindeer Moss—To create a border around the front of the mat

• Grass Moss—To create more green space and to cover the dirt in which the plants and flowers are sitting

• 2 plants in matching cachepots—I used lettuce inside of my lettuce themed cachepots

• 1 urn or other interesting container to use as a focal point—I used one of my antique black cast iron urns for this display because of its shape—oblong. But you can use any container that you think looks nice between your other, smaller containers that will be placed on either side of the main attraction. I loved using the ceramic lettuce with the black cast iron because it was a nice mix of new and old, and it’s not a combo one might typically think about!

• Tete-a Tete Mini Daffodils—two pots (or as many as you find you need) to fill your center container. And, again, your lettuce or whatever plant you have decided upon. Could be pansies or violas or anything else you might wish to plant when it’s finished pulling decoration duty on your table.

HOW TO:

• Place the moss onto your sideboard. Cover any white or brown paper attached to the mat with some good ol’ reindeer moss.

• Place the main attraction flowers into your large container. And be messy with your moss. You want this to look like you’d see it out in nature. Nothing has to be perfect. About any of these designs. That’s one of the best things about them!!

• On either side of your focal flowers, place your two complementary plants. Again, I used lettuce with my Tete-a-Tetes, but I also did the same arrangement with my Viola as the focal point, and I loved it. You can really do so much with just a few potted plants and flowers.

• Place your eggs on the mat.

• Give yourself serious props for having put together something so simple and yet so sophisticated and serene at the same time….and in under 10 minutes~!

JOIN ME!!

Please join me for more adventures in planning your spring decor and bringing your house alive with spring colors and flowers. I’m preparing a great download of additional spring arrangements for my subscribers. I hope you’ll join the crew!! Oh, and please send me your Easter photos…I’d love to see what you’ve done!!! And if you give me permission, I’ll post your creations on the blog….

Happy Easter!

xoBetsy