Blending natural textures with shades of white, cream, and soft beige gives rise to an Easter celebration that’s both fresh and all-natural. Because this easy-going, handmade approach embraces imperfections, you’ll enjoy the little bit of stress-free time it will take to make a wreath, paint some eggshells, and create cutout place mats. You’ll really enjoy the reactions of friends and family!

DIY Easter Decor for an Elegant Celebration

Are you dreaming of a gorgeous Easter celebration this year? Treat family and friends to nature-inspired décor designed to lift traditional and modern homes alike. Set off the tablescape with an eye-catching Easter wreath, finished with details inspired by the simple beauty and fertile promise of the humble egg, which has for centuries been a symbol of the new life that accompanies the emergence of spring.

The Egg Comes First

You can find wreath-making tools and accessories at your favorite hobby store or at a florist’s supply store. To create the version shown, we used generous handfuls of dried leafy stems threaded with fine, pale straw. We then suspended handmade egg decorations from the wreath using varied lengths of natural raffia.

We hung the finished “centerpiece” from the ceiling above the table, but you can just as easily make a wreath for wall or door. Pro tip: to protect your hands, wear gardening gloves when working with foliage.

Keep the overall look monochrome, light-filled, and tranquil by avoiding any colorful tableware or leafy greenery. White plates (new or thrifted), chunky glass tumblers, and creamy linen napkins are ideal choices for this natural look.

The Textured Table

To add a beautiful, natural three-dimensionality to the tablescape, combine the twiggy linearity of bird’s nests (found, made, or purchased) and tuck these into vintage creamers, pitchers, and small serving bowls for further textural contrast. Use a variety of egg-shaped decorations ranging in size and coloration from tiny speckled quail’s eggs to the classic buff brown of hen’s eggs.

Create simple napkin holders by threading natural raffia strands with a couple of craft store beads and then looping the strands a few times around each napkin. Avoid making each holder exactly the same – it’s the wabi-sabi charm of the handmade you want to evoke here.

Paper Trail

For an additional – and delightfully eye-catching – element of texture and shape on the table, make your own place mats by cutting sheets of plain white paper into shapes inspired by paper doilies. Remember cutting snowflakes out of paper? The principle is the same.

To make place mats similar to those seen here, cut out circles with a 14 to 16 inch diameter from white craft paper or butcher paper. Fold each circle into quarters, then into eighths, and use sharp scissors to neatly add zigzags and other details to the outside edges. Next, cut a variety of shapes along the folded edges in order to create cutouts along each pie-slice “section” of the circle. Experiment with lots of different shapes. If one or two of the place mats don’t work, you can just try again with a new paper circle. And make each place mat slightly different from the last to continue the generally complementary but mismatched theme of the table.

Alternatively, use ready-made white paper doilies, which can be found at party and craft supply stores either online or locally. Just be sure to choose them in a diameter large enough that they will show, charger-style, around the edges of your selected plates or bowls.

Softly, Softly

Perhaps the most traditional of all Easter decorations is the old-fashioned painted, blown-out eggshell. The example here has been daubed with white poster paint to create a delicate dot design, but all sorts of patterns and marks will work beautifully if you stick to a monochrome palette.

For an excellent tutorial that will show you how to clean out the interiors of eggs, go online: for example, BBC Good Food has a comprehensive guide.

Encasing your decorated eggs within mini “nests” of shredded paper adds even more textural and decorative appeal.

Nesting Instincts

Combining both ultra soft and slightly rougher textures, as well as a variety of natural shades of color, handmade “bird’s nests” are the perfect containers for displaying your decorated Easter eggs.

The easiest possible “nest” can be made by simply shaping raffia and dried leafy stems and twigs into bowls, then topping with a painted hen’s egg or a couple of beautifully patterned, blown-out quail’s eggs.

Delicate Touch

Once the main party’s over, your decorative Easter wreath will look lovely through the spring. Simply remove the decorated suspended eggs. Save them for reuse next year or compost them.

Bunny Love

A delightful group of handmade Easter bunnies – the rabbit or hare is another ancient and instantly recognizable symbol of this special celebration – also makes a playful, welcoming decor element. Making them yourself is another craft project that is super easy to do and has huge appeal for kids.

Source old-school wooden curtain rings, polystyrene balls (in two sizes), tiny white pom- poms, white pipe cleaners, and preserved bunny tail grass (Lagurus ovatus) from your local craft supplier or florist supply store. Paint the balls in gradations of your monochrome color scheme using poster paint, and when dry, stack them in bunny shapes as shown, finishing with pom-pom tails and pipe cleaner or bunny tail grass “ears.”

What a Card

Greeting cards aren’t just for birthdays or Christmas: why not send a handmade celebration of Easter with a side order of good wishes to family and friends by way of the written word this spring?

To make your own cards without starting entirely from scratch, purchase ready made window-cards from your local craft or stationery store, or online. Decorate with pieces of paper doily and add cutout elements in contrasting paper, as well as small round or egg-shaped beads.

Trace and cut out simple bunny shapes from lightweight cardboard, decorate with small white pom- poms or cotton-wool balls for “tails,” then add them to your window cards as decoration – or use as notecards just as they are.

Remember that cards also make for a lovely display in their own right, so use any extras you might have to create your own on a side table or mantelpiece.

Story by Robyn Alexander
Styling by Shelley Street
Photography by Warren Heath
Production by Bureaux

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