Playing With Patterns In A Colorful Mother’s Day Tablescape

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What comes to mind when you close your eyes and think of a mother figure? For me, bold splashes of red, bouquets of flowers, twirls of vintage patterns, blue eyes sparkling with laughter, glasses of iced coffee next to morning prayer journals and dancing hugs set to the sound of Ben Howard’s “Keep Your Head Up”, race through my mind, reminding me of my own mom. Perhaps you have similar memories of your mother, grandmother or godmother which have shaped you into the person you are today. With Mother’s Day approaching, I wanted to take a minute to discuss fun ways to celebrate the love, sacrifice and tender care of the mother figures in our lives by playing with patterns in a colorful Mother’s Day tablescape.

Playing With Patterns

Whether setting a table with paper products or china, playing with patterns around the table sets a fun and festive tone. To do this successfully without coming across as too busy, think of your table in a series of layers: a Base layer (tablecloth or placemats), Mid layer (napkins or chargers) and Top layer (plates, bowls or glasses).

When looking at the mix of patterned layers, I recommend letting one layer have a large scale pattern and two have small scale patterns OR one large scale pattern layer, one textural pattern layer and one small scale pattern layer. This combination helps to balance the detail in each layer while preventing an overwhelming mix of color and visual interest. In this tablescape, I used the following:

Base Layer (tablecloth) – Textured – Textured embroidered lace pattern tablecloth
Mid Layer (napkins & chargers) – Large Scale Pattern – Large scale yellow and neutral patterned napkins paired with a smooth textured charger helps to break from the large texture pattern of tablecloth. Remember that a layer with a lack of texture (aka a smooth surface), still actually acts as a texture in itself.
Top Layer (stacked plates) – Small Scale Pattern – Small scale twisted rose ring patterned plates

Playing With Patterns In A Colorful Mother's Day Tablescape

Fill Florals With Color

With a name that literally translates to “blooming”, I am a floral girl at heart. To me, flowers always make any day, occasion and experience more beautiful, so I tend to integrate them wherever possible. Having gained this love of flowers from my mom, I knew right away that flowers must help to be the star of the show in this tablescape. If you or your mom are flower lovers too, then create your table with a showy set of blooms! When looking to integrate flowers with a series of patterns, I recommend highlighting one or two of the primary colors in your patterns to make the biggest impact. Here, I chose bright yellows and pinks to lean into for a full burst of color (which I could also pull in from the remaining dried elements of our celebratory floral chandelier that still is going strong!). This helps to create a colorful table that compliments the patterns involved.

For these flowers, I mixed a couple of whimsical flowers and greenery from my yard with grocery store finds from Trader Joes with all three of these arrangements coming in for less than $40! If designing flowers is not your thing, but you still want them to be a powerful punch in your Mother’s Day tablescape, local florists, Urban Stems and Farmgirl Flowers have beautiful selections that would be perfect to integrate. Let the floral arrangements be a star of your table setting and then send them home with your mom to enjoy for days to come.

Share The Experience

Lastly, but certainly not least, consider sharing your tablescape creation experience. I love surprising my mom with tablescape creations and discussing the process of creating just the right elements throughout, however there is something equally as magical about sharing the creation experience with her as I did with this one. Obviously for this step, you have to be sure that your mom would find more joy than stress in the creation experience, but if she loves doing flowers or setting a table or making a punch, don’t just throw a brunch or meal for her, but instead, enjoy the creation process with her! Or, in a similar vein, go ahead and set the table and have your food prepared, but share the process of creating the flower arrangements together. Either option can be such a sweet gift of time and memories to share together beyond just the meal.

Final Thoughts

Whether you are layering with patterns in your moms favorite color, building floral arrangements together or buying flowers to send them home with her, creating a Mother’s Day tablescape can be such a sweet opportunity to celebrate the awesome mom in your life. While I am not there yet, I am grateful for and inspired by the courageous women who walk the tightrope between unsure sacrifice in the night and beauty of growth in the joy of the day in a journey called motherhood. This journey, especially when done well, should be complimented and celebrated both on Mother’s Day and throughout the year. So, in light of this, how do you hope to celebrate your mom this Mother’s Day?

Happy celebrating!