This May we gathered the whole Arlo bunch to look back on the year’s achievements and forward to bright days ahead. Our spring party is not something our Chief of Style, Julie Smith takes lightly. She does, however, handle it with a light touch and a playful dash of creativity. What emerged was a farmhouse fresh feel that remains bright in our memories as we step into summer. Join us for a look at how to set a spring table that’s sure to delight…

We’re very lucky to have found the perfect location for our spring party at Donnington Park Farmhouse Hotel. It’s just outside the town of Melbourne, where the Arlo HQ is based. The area, itself is a pastoral wonder, but what’s inside is pretty gorgeous, too. The building has the feel of a rustic storehouse, with exposed brick and plenty of rich wooden elements. Setting our party in this environment certainly started Julie off on the right foot. It’s important to begin by taking stock of your environment and considering how you can respond to it through your styling. Donnington Park Farmhouse Hotel has a country charm to it which really informed the aesthetic direction Julie took and the materials for the job. 

Perfectly quaint farmhouse interiors are not always readily available, however. If you love the look but happen to live in a more contemporary, polished home, we’d recommend taking it outside! As long summer nights set in, al fresco dining wins the day. It’s a great alternative when weather’s looking good and the garden is bursting with life. 

In our case, Julie was working with a relatively neutral palette to start. So, she was able to choose which colours felt right for the occasion and would pop nicely against the white walls, timber ceilings, and bricked elements. Julie started with crisp, white tablecloths and timeless wooden bistro style chairs. Simple, classic silverware and glasses maintained a polished yet neutral effect, primed for a bit of colour. Green was a natural choice, given the vital and verdant season. Julie folded this in with napkins made from our bestselling Mariola Stripe fabric in the Pesto colourway. So, the palette was set in white, green, and woody brown, leaving Julie ready to get creative with some characterful accent pieces!

With green leading the way, Julie peppered pops of intrigue across the tables. Portable, chargeable table lamps proved to be a design-forward, functional addition. We’d highly recommend working these into a tablescape, allowing you to rely less heavily on flat overhead lighting. Where possible, follow Julie’s lead, stringing up lights, switching on wall sconces, introducing table lamps, and igniting battery-operated tea lights instead. The venue didn’t allow open flames, so Julie went the extra mile in presenting battery-operated tea lights. She handcrafted candle holders, herself, explaining: 

“Decorations can be costly and I wanted to create full and frothy tables. So, I had to improvise! The little tealight-sized clay pots are very simple. They are just air-dried clay moulded into shape around a tea light (with a bit of extra room to allow for shrinkage). Once dry, I painted some green and left others in their natural terracotta. They have a very naive quality to them but, when grouped together, look really cool.”

Bottle green glassware made a welcome addition to the tables, especially once filled with bright and beautiful plant life. Julie had been hard at work growing nasturtiums for the occasion - but as any gardener will know, nature doesn’t always work on our schedule. As she notes:

“I was hoping the colour scheme would be green with the pops of hot orange, red, and yellow from the nasturtium flowers. When they didn’t bloom in time, I adapted by carrying on with the green theme of foraging and hedgerows. Cow parsley is nature’s free gift and is in absolute abundance around our village. I kept it really simple, using honeysuckle to get some wiggly height. I added small pots of nasturtium leaves that provided a lovely twistiness to the arrangements and added bold bursts of green. To top it off, bud vases filled with cow parsley lined the middle of the tables, mingling with the nasturtiums.” 

In the end, Julie created a lively display with an air of ease perfectly suited to the occasion. We hope you’ll find much to emulate in her tips for success, bringing bursts of life to your table through these bright and breezy months!