SEASONAL INSPIRATION
Let joy blossom at the Easter table with relaxed styling that makes for shared moments with friends and family
Bringing ON SPRING
A welcoming Easter table plays up the simple joys of the season. Team everyday ceramics with cheerful prints and pretty colours, offset against rustic textures. Arrange blossomed boughs in a large glass vase as a centrepiece, and let potted narcissus cheer up windowsills and herald spring with their lemony trumpets.
EGGS OF many colours
Decorate duck eggs (pre-blown or hard-boiled) with natural dyes: beetroot for pink, turmeric for yellow and red cabbage for blue. Peel, if necessary, chop and boil ingredients separately in 750ml of water for 30 minutes, strain and add 1 tbsp white vinegar. Mask shells with leaves (use a gluestick) to create patterns, wrap in a popsock and immerse for an hour – build deeper colour with further immersions.
DREAM WEAVING
Smooth sugar shells hide chocolate centres in Easter eggs nestled in baskets of straw, tissue or foliage sprigs. Add whimsy to your celebrations by crafting small punnets. Interweave 1.5cm-wide strips of lightweight kraft card to create sheets. Glue to secure and fold into a box shape.
BLOSSOM BUDDIES
Make your own spring blooms. Cover florist’s wire with green florist tape to fashion stems, adding crepe paper leaves, then wrap strips of crepe paper snipped with incisions around the top, fluffing into flamboyant flowers to display on the table or at each place setting.
ALL EARS
Every egg hunt needs an Easter bunny and these gingham ears will let everyone know who to follow. Lead a garden hunt or hide a trail indoors, adding eggs decoupaged with guests’ faces on them to find and hang on an Easter twig tree. Headband, £8.50, Talking Tables (talkingtables.co.uk).
NEST EGGS
Create miniature spring tableaux in homemade glass jar terrariums, planting small flowering bulbs into nests of twigs. Thinly layer compost and gravel under the bulbs to make sure they don’t get waterlogged. Mist regularly and surround the plants with blown speckled quail’s eggs.
A cup of COWSLIPS
Reaching for the sunshine with long stems and bright yellow flowers, the wild cowslip was once as common as the buttercup in hedgerows and woods. Pot up in vintage enamel cups for a nostalgic display – the flowers have a slightly citrus flavour and can be used to decorate traditional Easter cakes and bakes.
TANGY Treats
Citrus zin
