Breakfast Setting

Wherever you serve Easter breakfast, be sure the setting is light and airy. Raise the shades and fling open the windows, or set the table on the porch or patio for alfresco dining.

The fresh-from-the-garden ambience here includes vegetables and flowers, porcelain bunnies, and a palette in springy pastels. Petite favor baskets attached to the back of each chair will attract the attention of chocolate lovers of any age.

 

Clever details, such as the chandelier shades, lend a lighthearted touch to the morning festivities. Pull the outer leaves from an artificial cabbage and tie them with twine around plain or rattan chandelier lampshades.

 

A runner of raspberry silk is a fresh accent that helps highlight the white bunny vases and purple flower arrangements.

 

Embellish white napkins with
a beautiful fresh vegetable
(we used a radish) tied in
place with twine or raffia.

Elegant china gets a casual treatment when set on woven chargers and topped with a heavy linen napkin tied with twine and one perfect radish. Mixing and matching old glassware in various shapes and sizes is easy if the pieces share a common theme, such as the etching on these. Bamboo-handle silver adds another outdoorsy detail.

 

Fill tiny wire baskets with sphagnum moss or Easter grass, then add a handful of foil-wrapped candies. Tie on a big bow made from silk wire-edge ribbon, and attach a basket to each chair back with twine, tying it tight so the baskets don't sag.

 

Called into action from the potting shed, an inexpensive terra-cotta saucer serves as a whimsical coffee- and tea-service tray. Fresh garden vegetables fill the lower tiers of a wire basket, and flowers nestled in a bed of lettuce top it off with a joyous finale.

Wrap the flower stems loosely with a rubber band, and tuck the bouquet into a small canning jar filled with water before hiding it inside the leaves. Soak the vegetables in a chilly bath, then blot dry and arrange just before the first guest arrives.