When my kids were still small, I taught them how to decorate a table festively without the need to spend money, for birthdays, anniversaries, and other special days.  They still do this to this day, including on Mother's Day. 

Our techniques are very simple, but hard to describe in an article, so we thought we would share Jennaya's 2005 Mother's Day table with you in digital photographs.  We'll start with a photo of the whole table, really our breakfast bar, and then show you details.  Jennaya started by laying down a white

vinyl tablecloth and setting our pink patio dishes.  She picked roses from our yard and arranged them in a vase.  She set this on the table and then picked rose petals from fully open roses to scatter across the table.

The key to arranging roses is to cut their stems to different heights so they stand one above the other, like bleachers, instead of all reaching the same height. 

Below is Jennaya's decorating around a plate of muffins.  You can make ordinary cooking into something very

special in this way.

We do things a little differently for each and every celebration tea.  We serve either regular tea, mint tea, rose petal tea, or any other drink is fine, hot or cold.  The kids usually bake muffins or donuts, or brownies.  Sometimes we use savory toppings on crackers, such as cheese, or slices of cucumbers, pickles, olives (green or black) tomatoes, chives and anything else we think of.  We put a CD in and as soon as the honored person walks in the room, we start it playing.  The tea is then accompanied by beautiful music. 

See more tables decorated for celebration by Jennaya:

Her Brother's Birthday

Her Papa's Birthday

Father's Day

Jennaya spread the rose petals around the plates and serving dishes, going outward in a deliberately off-center circle.  (Have you ever noticed that in nature beauty is often just a little off-center?  That's a technique that works well in decorating.  See below.)

On the right we have given you some close-up detail so that you can see some design in how we sprinkle the rose petals and leaves across the table.  The leaves are from elm and maple trees.  A lavender spray adds a nice scent.  You can also see sprig of ice plant in the photo.  You can use all kinds of things, berries, herbs, any leaf or flower.  If you have small children in the home, only use foliage and flowers that are not poisonous.