[[vid:mm:15266086|caption=Tara shows how easy it is to add a fresh and vibrant feel to your entertaining this spring]]

Flowers, butterflies, ladybirds … get into the mood and welcome the new season with an outdoor tea party. Bring out your prettiest cups and saucers even if they don’t match – real style is about mixing everything up. Decorate the scene with potted blooms, and use these clever projects to create a table that celebrates this lovely time of year.

Outdoor tea party
You can deck out your table in top style with the finest mix of bone china, bought for next to nix from a thrift shop. As for the little luxuries, which make such a difference – think table runner, placemats, napkin rings

and tiered cake stand – why buy them when they’re so easy to make?

Retro runner

Weave strips of floral and plain fabric into a gorgeous runner for the centre of your table, choosing fresh colours to suit the light-hearted mood of the season.

Butterfly rings
The perfect finishing touch – butterflies fluttering at every place setting! Simply enlarge the diagram on page 236, trace onto thin card and cut out, making slits as indicated by dashed lines. Cut a length of beading wire, bend it in half and wind each end around a knitting needle to make spiralled antennae. Slip the folded section up the cut at base of butterfly and twist at the top to hold. Slot two halves of butterfly together into a ring and slip over napkins.

Ladybird, ladybird

Whip up a set of whimsical placemats using our simple ladybird stencils. Press under 1cm on edges of six 47 x 35cm canvas rectangles and finish with blanket stitch in a contrasting embroidery thread. Enlarge then trace ladybird (Body and Wings) onto stencil film and cut out with a scalpel. Using fabric paint or acrylic paint mixed with textile medium, stencil a vertical line of ladybirds on the left-hand side of each placemat. Stencil the bodies then, when dry, the wings. Dip end of paintbrush into black artist’s acrylic and dot paint onto wings. Heat-set the paint with your iron.

Let them eat cake!
And let them eat it from this delightful tiered cake stand. Made from a trio of vintage plates, screwed together on a threaded rod and topped with a chair-leg cap, it’s ideal for your tea table – and wonderfully practical, too. Anyone for a petit four?