My Easter Tablescape
Hi everyone! Please excuse my absence, I've been studying for a math exam and my Sociology class project presentation on China's environmental problems, both of which took place back-to-back (presentation: 12:30-1:45pm and exam: 2-3:15pm) on Thursday! What a week! Now I just have one more week of in-class final exam reviews/time to study like crazy, before I take my finals the week of April 23rd! Ack!
Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter, mine was awesome. We ate a little late because we were waiting on some family members to arrive, so you'll notice the change of lighting from the time of our buffet style dinner, to my dessert pictures at the end of this post. Unfortunately, my mother couldn't find her box of old beautiful Easter decorations, so I had to scavenge the house for Easter-themed decor. As you'll see, I didn't come up empty handed! ;)
Stay tuned for an upcoming post on all the goodies I've found at TJMaxx Homegoods over the past few months. Also, I'm happy to announce that I'll be doing my very first giveaway! Stay tuned this coming Monday April 16th to read all about the giveaway and enter for a chance to win!
Catherine
xoxo
Scroll on for lots of details on the Easter tablescape that I created, as well as our dinner and dessert heaven.....
I used a couple yards of fabric I found on Jo-Ann Fabrics online clearance section. It's really beautiful fabric, the pattern reminds me of a suzani!
My mother and I put together a vase of flowers with both store bought (the sunflowers and red stuff), and flowers from the yard (the palm fronds, and yellow and purple flowers)...
My mother bought a planter of white Lilies and we put it in a heavy blue ceramic basket bowl. I used yellow Easter grass to cover the planter and arranged a few plastic eggs in there for fun...
See our beautiful table? At this point we had already started to devour appetizers (far left) such as Deviled Eggs, and a delicious cream cheese/chutney/bacon dip - one of my very favorite dips! My mother put out her gorgeous ham covered in slices of juicy pineapple. I'm sure she would want me to tell you that she always puts cloves in her ham, but didn't this time because my uncle doesn't like them and she thought he was coming over (he didn't)...
Just look at that perfection.... It was amazing!
After I took those first photos of the ham while it was intact, my mother sliced it up and brought out her delicious Farmer's Pasta! You can get the recipe for this pasta here on Food Network, it's a Giada de Laurentis recipe. We have both made it countless times, changing things up here and there such as substituting cheeses and omitting pancetta when not on hand. No matter what, it's always soooo delicious!
A vibrant fresh salad...
And now, time for dessert! All of our desserts were homemade, except for the cupcake (which my mother bought for my sister and her friends at Costco). My boyfriend made Rugelach cookies and a Carrot Cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting, and I made a Key Lime Pie with Meringue! Yummmm...
I really love that Easter basket above (the bigger one), I got it at Publix on clearance for $2.00 and, for some reason, it reminds me of Wycinanki! It's probably the colors... I was immediately drawn to it, and I'm not the type to buy stuff like that at the grocery store.
Take a good look at these amazing Rugelach cookies that my talented man made! There were three types: Guava, Mango, and Nutella with chopped Hazelnuts. YUMMM!! So rich and buttery....
I liked how the peeps, jelly beans, and my mother's marble eggs looked hanging out not he platter amongst the Rugelach....
I arranged the cupcakes that my mom bought for my sister and her friends on a cake stand, placed a dollar store glass vase in the center filled with jelly beans, Reeses peanut butter cups, Easter grass, and marble eggs. I also added some ceramic bunnies on there, they belonged to me win I was younger and I found them on my mother's printer's drawer shadow box....
For some height on the table, I used a wood wine box to prop up the Carrot Cake that Ivan made. I layered the most pastel/Eastery colored tea towels that I could find in our giant drawer of towels, then scattered more of my mother's marble egg collection, and added a small vase with flowers from a Royal Poinciana tree with some bunnies and things...
Ahhh yes, my Key Lime pie! It's only the second one I've ever made but I am fast becoming a Key Lime Pie master genius! Muhahahaha! I like it tart, without the meringue (I put the meringue on it this time because everyone else likes it), and with a thick buttery graham cracker crust! I made it all from scratch - I crushed and pressed the crust by hand, squeezed a billion key limes by hand, mixed it by hand, whisked the meringue by hand, and BAM! Hehe... It rocks my world and I'm never buying a Key Lime pie again, ya just can't beat a homemade pie....
And now, for the wonderful Carrot Cake that my Ivan made. Anything he sets out to make, or shall I say bake (hehe), he masters and perfects! He grated some carrot on top for a decorative culinary hint....
... and I used a small turquoise marble egg and some small plastic flowers, bunnies, and eggs (found in an old box of craft stuff) to adorn the top of the cake. I felt pretty lucky to have found all of this Eastery stuff in that old craft box, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do this...
I think the little painted wooden eggs pressed into the frosting all around looked pretty darn cute!! No to mention, I looped some pink trim from my mom's sewing box along the perforated lip of the cake stand for more pastel goodness...
Of course, we finally cut into that sucker, and it was glorious! So glorious that I forgot to take a pretty (plated) picture of the slice that you see missing below...
(All photographs in this post are my personal images, please do not use them without my written permission - I can be contacted at InspireBohemia(at)gmail.com - thank you!)