Fourth of July Picnic

Admin · July 4, 2022

I don’t know how you are planning to celebrate the Fourth of July, but because of the heat, I will be celebrating indoors. Whether indoors or out, a picnic is always a fun answer. There is nothing like relaxing on a blanket surrounded by colorful dishes, fragrant flowers, a glass of bubbly, and a wonderful meal topped off with a festive dessert that says party!

This red, white, and blue picnic display is in honor of the birth of our nation. It’s quite serendipitous how all of this came about. I was rummaging around in the belly of the beast (as I often do), and came upon this picnic basket that had been given to Mr. O-P and I as a wedding present back in 1995. I brought it upstairs, opened it up, and found it full of picnic items, most of which were more utilitarian than I generally opt for. When you consider every day a celebration, you generally don’t want to waste time on utilitarian.

I mentioned my find to friend and fellow blogger Alycia of Tablescapes at Table Twenty One, wherein she was reminded of a picnic basket of her own. As a consequence, I threw down the gauntlet and challenged her to create four different picnic displays between now and the same time next year, and I’ll do the same. Be sure to check her blog for her beautiful Fourth of July "yardscape," and to see what other magic she comes up with for her picnics. If you would like to play along, Amazon has quite an assortment of them; I am currently lusting after this one.

I took everything out of the basket, saved a few pieces, and donated the rest. Then I set to work turning what would probably have been an adequate picnic into a fun, rather romantic, and colorful one.

The fabric in this picture belonged to my mother. Patriotic yardage used as a backdrop she used to use as a table covering. The tablecloth beneath the basket is one that we used when I was a little girl to top picnic tables at the local park when we would have a picnic after swimming lessons. You can find something similar here.

I made a stack of red, white, and blue plates; the blue ones I found in an antique shop, and are actually a part of a children’s tea set, all in cobalt.

As luck would have it, my daughter-in-law is celebrating her birthday on the first of this month, so I had wrapped birthday gifts at the ready, conveniently in colors of our nation’s flag.

The flatware is from Target. The candlesticks are antique and to be used during those romantic nighttime picnics when sparks fly; the glassware Mikasa Park Lane.