How we view Mother's Day changes as we move through life. As a child we make handmade gifts for our mothers and I remember serving my Mom breakfast in bed. When my kids were young it meant that I got to pick what we did for fun that day. Now that I'm a grandmother, it means having grandchildren and their parents over for afternoon desert … so we can all celebrate Mother's Day together.
Celebrating Mother's Day with Family
No surprise that with everyone coming to my house, I get to prepare desert and why not decorate too. Of course I don't mind as my challenge is to return to decorating for holidays, the way I did when my boys were young.
So this article shares what I did … and what I learned in the process.
Picking a Tablescape Theme
It's tempting to head off to Home Goods for ideas on celebrating Mother's Day. But wait up … try shopping your house for things you've squirreled away, things you love but don't use enough. For me it was this lovable collection of teddy bears I brought home from Australia years ago.
Now it was time to visit Home Goods and find decor to go with the bears. Unlike Easter decorations, most of the focus for Mother's Day is on cards, flowers and gifts for mom so I assumed I'd probably end up using flowers for the tablescape … but what color?
When I found these jars, it was clear that my color would be pink. Now it was time to find flowers to fill the jars for the tablescape I wanted to celebrate Mother's Day. I also picked up two glass canisters that match what I have in my kitchen and created taller flower arrangements.
Flower Arrangements Perfect for Celebrating Mother's Day
Starting with several different types of flowers, I thought it would be easy to create simple flower arrangements for the Mother's Day tablescape. How wrong I was so here's what I tried:
- While I picked flowers for their color, they were all different heights. I used gardening snips to cut the flowers to the length I wanted.
- To save money I reused the “paper grass” from the the Easter tablescape (Dollar Tree or Michaels). To help the flowers stand up, I used rubber bands but decided if I did this again, green florist foam blocks might work better.
- The flower arrangement challenges continued and once done, I wasn't sure which arrangement I liked best so it was time to check out more arrangements for ideas.
- How to give the arrangements more height.
- How to spread the flowers sideways for more breadth.
Flower Vases: What Works or Doesn't
While I enjoy creating tablescapes, I have to admit that flower arranging doesn't feel like something I'm very good at so I made a decision to use faux flower arrangements that are pre-made. Yes, I'd rather spend time doing things I enjoy, ones that produce results I like.
Here's what I've learned about flower arrangements that led to my decision to use the cute little flower vases found at Home Goods. With three pink vases and yes, I bought three blue vases too, I should be able to use them several times each year … for celebrating Mother's Day and many other holidays.
- Vases need to work with the tablecloth or table runner they sit on. It took the white vase (on right) to show me that the pink plaid vase (on left) clashed with the table runner.
- Flowers should be about twice as tall as the vase, something I didn't know before. I'll be returning the taller vases because I don't want anything that tall on the table. My preference is things short enough that you can see everyone at the table.
- Flower heights should vary and from the new vases I found at Home Good, it looks like three/more different heights are ideal.
A Simple Mother's Day Tablescape
One thing I've discovered is I prefer table runners over tablecloths. It's funny though because I seem to buy two or 3 before I pick the one I'll keep. My goal is to start making some of these table runners using ideas like the Easter egg runner I saw at Home Goods.
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