To me, entertaining in the spring means using the season’s blooms in soft, pastel colors. But my latest spring tablescape was actually inspired by Target of all places! An endcap featuring their watercolor product line from Paperchase caught my eye, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to use it!
The product line features cups and napkins with a pastel marble design accompanied by plates decorated with polka dot brush strokes and scalloped edges. I added a matching pastel ribbon to the top of each place setting to tie the look together. But after that was complete, I struggled with what to do for the place cards because the Paperchase line doesn’t include a matching set. I decided to take a picture of the napkin with my iPhone, and after emailing it to myself, I used it as the background image for my place cards with each guest’s name as an overlay. I printed them out on cardstock, and it ended up being a simple solution to my place card problem!
I used a coordinating mint-colored tablecloth—which was a great accent base color for the plates and napkins—and floating, pillar and taper candles that matched perfectly.
The finishing touch on my table was my floral centerpiece. It took a couple of hours to create, but I was really happy with the way it turned out. You may look at this centerpiece and think, “There is NO way I can make that myself!” Let me tell you I thought the same thing before I tried it. I don’t have a background in floral design, just a love of flowers, so over the years I have taught myself. Now that I have some of the proper tools and knowledge, it’s one of my most favorite things to do for my parties.
To create a floral centerpiece like this one, you will need just a few supplies.
Materials: wet floral foam ball (8” in diameter), pedestal bowl (8” or larger to hold the wet floral foam ball—I used this silver scalloped pedestal bowl), 8-10 dozen flowers (preferably ones with hard stems like roses or hydrangeas. From experience, flowers like tulips and Gerber daisies—the ones with softer, thinner stems—will break when inserted into the harder, wet floral foam and don’t yield good results.)
First, soak your wet foam floral ball in a laundry sink for at least 30 minutes on all sides or until it is no longer absorbing any more water.
If you are looking to make a rounded centerpiece like mine, it’s best if you cut all the flowers to about the same length (I cut mine to about 8-9”). Cut your flower stems at an angle for easier insertion into your floral foam ball.
Put the soaked foam ball in your pedestal bowl vase and begin your flower arranging. I generally start by inserting the flower stems every few inches all the way around the floral foam ball, from top to bottom.
Start to fill in the open spaces with additional flowers, remembering to constantly turn your centerpiece around so that it is even on all sides. Don’t start just on one side—you may run out of flowers by accidentally clumping them too closely together (and I speak from experience when I say this!). Keep going until you can’t see any of the floral foam ball. I used a variety of flowers in this arrangement including large roses, smaller garden roses and hydrangeas. This helps to fill in the large and small gaps easily.
After the arrangement was complete, I sprayed it with water from a spray bottle to keep the blooms fresh and then scattered a few extra rose petals on the table below my arrangement to complete my spring tablescape!
Happy spring entertaining!
