Last week, I was invited to a bloggers challenge for The Home to create a Easter table setting, and I’ve got to admit, I was a little hesitant.

Craft, I can do with my eyes closed, but table dressing and styling?! I didn’t even know if I was good or not because I’d never actually tried it! I’m pretty happy if I can be bothered to put down place mats.

But there’s nothing more fun than a challenge to get the creative juices flowing, and after a brief fit of nervousness, I decided to throw myself into it and start researching ideas. I’m a bit of a history nerd, and I loved learning about the pagan origins of the holiday. The theme of rebirth – opposed to cutesy bunnies and chicks – really felt like it would lend to a sophisticated and modern table setting.

On the day, we got got organised in teams – I was paired with the fabulous Lisa Tilse from The Red Thread, a fellow craft blogger!

 Lisa was more than happy to come on board with the hare-brained scheme theme, and we got about creating with the décor hand picked by The Home senior stylist Marjorie Silva.

When you get two crafters on a table setting challenge, get ready for some prop modification – after deciding to go for organic, rustic colours, we cut muslin into table mats, chopped the ends of some paper covered plastic eggs and threaded some flowers through, and instead of name cards, we instead used little cubes.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a great team effort, and I was pretty chuffed by the end of the challenge, even though I knew we had stiff competition from the other competitors – their table settings also looked spectacular!

I was so excited when it was announced that we had won the challenge! I had a chat to The Home CEO Alexandra Mills afterwards, and she told me it was so close, but the little touches of creativity we used was what made the difference.

Best of all, all the  décor we used was given to GIVIT, a charity which matches those in need to what you have to give.

It’s such a fantastic idea, I wanted to donate some unused beauty products to a charity last year, but had a real challenge trying to find one close by. I’m going to give them all to GIVIT who will be able to give it to a shelter in need.

A HUGE thanks to my fellow competitors Angela Anderson from The Home Style File, Chris Carroll from The Life Creative, Dara Tippapart, Kate St James from Grand Designs Australia, Michelle Ball from House Rules, Galina Dixon, and Erika Raxworth.

TIPS FOR SETTING A THEMED TABLE 

Don’t be scared of getting creative! Think outside the box and modify your table settings to suit the theme. This could be dressing up some candles or glasses with a ribbon, or cutting up old place mats to give them a raw edge.

Use unusual materials Lisa and I both gravitated to unusual materials like hessian, moss tuffs, florists wire, wooden cubes – the result was a truly unique and striking setting.

Put down everything you like, then edit, edit, edit. Lisa and I worked together and included everything we both liked. Then, we stood back and took out about a quarter of what we laid out. You don’t want it to be so busy that you can’t actually eat at the table!

A pop of colour goes a long way. Even though we used natural and organic type materials and colours, we still included pops of colour to make it lively. We restricted this to our big vase of yellow flowers, then, we carried through the colour by putting touches like single flowers on the plate.

Thank you to Dara Tippapart for the beautiful photos.

Any other tips for styling aficionados like myself? I’d love to hear about it! LIKE Darnsexysecondhand on Facebook and leave a comment.