Easter is a long awaited, well deserved, long weekend. I’ve got the best ideas for styling your table in 2022. Get creative for your annual feast - in collaboration with Kilnhouse and Sett & Beat.
I have always been a sucker for dinner parties. The smaller, the better. It is a profound experience when we welcome friends, family or foreigners around a table. We share food, conversation, culture…we drink, we laugh, we sometimes cry. It is a tradition that is older than we can possibly imagine, stretching back millennia as our collective ancestors shared stories around fires, in caves and overhangs.
Nowadays a fire is swapped for a Weber (although not in my house), food is served on a plate and the cave has become a solar panel covered roof, but let’s not lose the joy of coming together to learn from and enjoy each other.
Let’s embrace a slowing down, let’s give attention to what passes over our lips whether it be food or words, let’s appreciate our surroundings and those that surround us. With that in mind, this beautiful Easter table setting is the essence of creativity and showcases age old crafting methods practiced by brands that truly live the ethos of conscious making.
Let’s feast our eyes, minds and bodies this Easter.
Styling Tips on How to Get the Look
Start with Colour
Generally our eyes are the most acute of our senses, so give them something worth looking at! Begin with a mood board as colour greatly affects our mood.
I’ve chosen softer pastels and focused on the orange and pink (leaning into red) palette. Orange evokes feelings of happiness and energises a space. The specific hue I used reminds me of the golden colour the light becomes as dusk starts to settle over the landscape at this time of year. Pink is associated with calm and kindness, an obvious choice for a ‘slow’ and conscious dinner. The more relaxed your guests feel, the more you will all enjoy the experience.
Let these colour choices permeate throughout your subsequent choices. Learn more about colour theory here. I even selected a beautiful amber MCC to suit the theme: Krone Borealis Brut Rose
Choose Crockery - Kilnhouse Design Studio ‘Lines in Sand’
Hand thrown plates, bowls and other crockery add an element of texture and playfulness to the table. The stone coloured ceramic range from Kilnhouse is just that little more interesting than straight white tableware. When you’re taking a bite,and you look down at your plate, give a thought to the hands that created the vessel.
About the Ceramic Range
“It is a very human thing to draw a line. We draw boundaries, roads, walls, borders, countries - all of which create a structure of ownership that only can perceive - invisible, yet apparent. ‘Lines in Sand’ is an exploration into mark making and their resulting influence, much like my own hunger to create an impression in the ceramic arts - creating my own line in sand.”
Kilnhouse is a small scale production and custom design studio focused on creating ceramic goods that are both unique and boundary pushing. To get in touch or purchase the range, please contact Nicola here.
It has to be said that Nicola was an excellent photography assistant, thank you!
Timeless Table Linen - Sett & Beat ‘The Botanicals’
Handwoven napkins and place mats give a sensory softness to this table setting. I had a ton of fun folding them in different ways, my absolute favourite being the bunny ears as a subtle nod to Easter. The beauty in fabric napkins is that we can wash and reuse them, instead of throwing them away without thought. As you wipe your hands or your mouth, just for a moment remember that what you are holding took hours to load a loom, hours to weave the colourful pattern with intricate details. So too give the product the hours of use it deserves.
About the Range
“The colours we have used in this range include red from the roots of the Madder Tree, beige from the bark of the Acacia tree, marigold flowers have been tinted with iron to get that lovely dirty yellow, and taupe is created from the galls of Oak trees.”
Sett & Beat is a conscious textile studio based in Cape Town, South Africa, that designs, makes and procures bespoke textiles. To get in touch or purchase the range, please contact Camila here.
Forage for Florals
“Earth laughs in flowers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A table setting is never complete without flowers. They provide colour, life and are a gorgeous display of forms to create sculptural features. The blooms chosen are all flowering at this time of year (April). There are Cosmos, Dahlias, Echinacea available from Wildly Sown, who chooses to farm flowers organically and encourages natural regenerative practices. Other foliage included a collection of wild grasses foraged from a local veld. Add a dried out bonsai or an empty birds nest to give detail to your tablescape.
Don’t let your guests' eyes tire of seeing the beautiful objects in front of them. Let them start conversations about the joys of growing something from seed, to see it sprout, grow and bloom. To know that this process takes months and that flowers should to be adored for the fleeting moment they are in the life of a plant.
Add Decor & Cutlery
Use the ‘fancy’ knives and forks. I used beautiful gold ‘Moon’ cutlery hired from All Things Wedding SA. A few vases and votives also came from their lovely catalogue. Come back to your colour choices, play with materials like transparent glass and solid porcelain. Add candle holders if you know you’ll be dining at night.
The world is filled with cupboards of heirlooms or wedding gifts that never see the light of day. I say shine the spotlight! We learn to take care of our beloved items by interacting with them. By showing the kids what Grandma made or ‘got as a gift from the Queen’, we teach the next generation about the stories in everyday objects. We recount the funny, poignant, sad or melancholic moments, we create new memories embedded in more than food.
Final Touches & The Feast
You’re all set and so is the table, you’ve got plates, cutlery, linen, decor and flowers. This can be the whole look, but I like to add occasion specific items to bring the theme home. I used Beacon’s candy coated Easter eggs as decoration (and you can eat them for dessert!). They didn’t detract from the aesthetic and added a fun element to the tablescape.
Now it’s time to enjoy your food, your family and friends, or simply enjoy the setting. I urge you to take a moment to remember that everything in front of you was made or grown by another person, that it is their passion and livelihood. Take a breath. Take a bite. Give thanks.
Happy Easter!
