My Favorite Tablescape Tip — Aratari At Home

For Mother's Day, I told John Paul I wanted to have a few minutes to myself to be creative and do something I love! That something is creating tablescapes. I love elaborate ones, simple ones and everything in between. For me, it is something that I can have fun with and can use things that I already have in my home to create a completely new look.

I am so excited to share with you my favorite tablescape tip that I use when creating all my tablescapes inside or outside.

I am also part of a fun spring blog hop with a few of my talented friends! They are sharing lots of great spring inspiration too! Be sure to check out their posts linked at the bottom of mine :)

I haven't really done a porch table setting before so I thought that this would be perfect for Spring! If you didn't know, lavender is one of my favorite flowers!! We used it as my bridesmaid's bouquets and in the centerpieces at my wedding. I have a ton of dried lavender all over the house leftover from the wedding that I will never get rid of. I love using it in my home decor so I thought I would use it as part of this outdoor tablescape!

We have a little outdoor dining area on our porch and I thought this would be the perfect backdrop for this tablescape! I put down a canvas colored table cloth (similar HERE) and then layered some really fun textured place mats (similar HERE) on top. I love the contrast that the mats add since the place mats and the table cloth are very similar in color.

I then took my favorite white plates (HERE) and placed them on top of the place mats. Next I added my little dessert plates from the china set that my Mother in Law gifted to me. They are the perfect touch of color and have the cutest little floral pattern. I stuck 2 sprigs of dried lavender on the white plates to add a pop of color and to tie in the lavender from the centerpiece to the place setting.

For the centerpiece, I just used a little wooden tray to give the real, potted lavender some height. I then added 4 glass jars around the tray and stuck a big bunch of dried lavender into each jar. Super simple but it smells SO good!

Tablescape Tip:

Now, for what you came here for...when I create a tablescape, I like to make sure the centerpiece is the same "shape" of the table. So since this is a rounded/square table, I like to mimic that with the centerpiece.

For my dining room table that is long and rectangular, I would do something more linear. In doing this, the tablescape flows much better.

If I were to create a linear tablescape here, you wouldn't have enough room to really serve food/drinks and the tablescape would look really off. If I were to use a rounded/square centerpiece on a rectangle table, the table would look unfinished.

By following the lines of the table, the centerpiece looks more balanced and polished. On a square/round table, you can do a centerpiece that is just in the middle of the table. The centerpiece can be very tall or short, whichever you prefer.

On a rectangle table, you can do a centerpiece that is the length of the table to really fill up the space. Again, making it tall or short depending on your preference.

Of course there are no rules to creating a tablescape and you can really do anything you like, BUTTTT this is just something I tend to follow when putting together a tablescape. Balance is key!