How to Transform Your Everyday Decor to Easter Decor in 15 Minutes + $1.59

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Sometimes, we want to party full-out, and other times, we just want to pretty things up — quickly and for not much money. (Check out my full-scale Shabby Chic Easter Party.) So today, I’m showing you how to set your dining room table for Easter in about 15 minutes for $1.59. High impact, low investment.

Here’s how my dining room normally looks. (Okay — how it normally looks when I haven’t temporarily stashed party stuff on the table.)

I’m going to take you step-by-step through the really easy process of going from everyday to Easter. The point is to use what you have without turning your house upside down or buying all new decor. Your table won’t look like mine because we don’t have the same stuff. But, it can look just as pulled-together. You can recreate this look using just a few things from your house:

Pull out your Easter decor. Try to find like elements so you don’t have a hodgepodge. You could pair plastic Easter eggs and jelly beans, like I did at my Shabby Chic Easter Party.
If you are a scrapbooker, grab a paper pack or leftover patterned papers in a 12″x12″ size. Using a paper pack ensures that your choices will coordinate.
Grab some cotton balls and a glue gun. I had to shop for cotton balls, so there’s the $1.59. The jumbo size will have more impact, but use whatever you’ve got.
Scissors, a paper punch or a paper trimmer.
Your good china, silver and crystal. If you don’t use it on the holidays, when will you use it?
Whatever light color fabric napkins you have. If they are all white, that’s fine. You can also mix and match, like I did.

Step 1

Add Easter eggs to the centerpiece. I choose eggs with a “natural” eggshell finish in pastel colors because I thought they’d blend well with the moss balls. These eggs have ribbons so they can be hung from an Easter egg tree. I tucked the ribbons under the eggs. You are just dressing up your centerpiece instead of creating something entirely new.

Step 2

Get out your scrapbooking paper. If you don’t have any, but want to recreate this look, you can find open stock paper at craft stores. The sheets are generally 5 for $1 when on sale or $0.50 a piece normally. Low cost!

Use the paper to form a table runner and as placemats. I used five sheets of 12″ x 12″ for my runner. Alternate colors and the size of patterns as you go. Tape the sheets together from the backside, so they don’t move every time you pass the sweet potatoes.

Here are the placemats so you can see how I mixed and matched the patterns.

Step 3

Add something more from your Easter stash. I choose two green bunny statuettes. They have a tarnished patina about them that blended well with my muted, vintage palette. You don’t need too much decor on your table, assuming that the table also will be full of serving pieces eventually.

Step 4

Set the table with all your good stuff. If you don’t want to expose grandma’s china to the children, by all means do something different at their spots, but if you have good stuff, I say use it!

Step 5

Add a crafty Easter touch. I had a vision of bunny tails, which is where the cotton balls come in. I know you’re busy, so I created two versions: an accordion-pleat style (look for the tutorial on Monday) and a faster, paper-punch version. Bonus: if you choose the faster, paper-punch style of bunny tails, you can write each guest’s name on the paper and turn these into place cards. Otherwise, they are just “for pretty.”

Step 6

Layer in napkins. Now, I know you have a stash of fabric napkins because you follow this blog and have taken my advice to invest in fabric napkins, right? {wink} Remember, you can get them inexpensively from LinenTablecloth.com or TableclothFactory.com and then you have them to use over and over. I used white Flower Fairy, pink Tea Party, and orange Halloween napkins and they all work wonderfully on my Easter table.