Posts Tagged ‘Picnic Products’

Picnic at the Beach

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

Who doesn’t love a trip to the beach? My family loves to pack up the beach toys, boogie boards, bathing suits, and sunscreen and go spend a day by the ocean. We also love to pack up good stuff to eat in picnic baskets, and cool things to drink in picnic coolers, so we don’t have to pay extra for food from a vendor. We just roll out the picnic blankets on the sand and dive right in.

We tried eating on our beach towels once, but it became clear that picnic blankets are an absolute necessity. For one thing, it’s nice to have the picnic basket and picnic cooler in a central location. And if you have kids, you know how messy they can be when they eat – we wanted to keep our beach towels clean! We have an extra large picnic blanket, so there’s room for the whole family to spread out under the Picnic Time Umbrella and relax. After lunch, I love to lay on my Beachcomber beach mat and read a good page-turner while the girls build sandcastles or swim.

I like to bring a wide variety of food in our picnic basket. We have a few picnic baskets for 2 (for those romantic picnics), but I’ve found that picnic baskets for 4 work best for large family outings. For the beach, I like to use a traditional picnic basket or a Beach Bag Deluxe Insulated Backpack instead of a wicker picnic basket. It’s amazing how sand manages to find it’s way into a wicker picnic basket, and no one wants sand in their sandwich!

Especially on a hot day, it’s essential to pack your picnic coolers with refreshing beverages and plenty of ice. I have picnic coolers on wheels, but I’ve found that they’re pretty useless in the sand. Rolling coolers are better suited for the park, so I bring a regular picnic cooler for 4 packed with water, juice, and maybe some margaritas for me and Dad!

Picnic at the Park

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

Well everyone, the weather is starting to warm up. Spring is on its way in, and you know what that means… picnic weather! So this weekend, my family is going to have a picnic at the park.

We love to go all out for weekend picnics. Multiple picnic baskets, picnic blankets, and lots of fun games and picnic accessories. Sometimes it’s just the four of us, but my favorite picnics are the big ones – we get a bunch of friends or extended family together, and we all meet up at the park with our picnic blankets and picnic baskets in tow. We always get a great variety of food and drinks, the kids have a blast together, and everyone brings their picnic accessories – games, umbrellas, picnic furniture, and BBQ tools.

We’re having a big picnic this weekend, with both sets of grandparents and my sisters family. I’m leaving my picnic baskets for 2 at home, and opting for picnic baskets for 4 (or more!). The food is family style – we’ll have potato salad, coleslaw, sandwiches, barbeque, watermelon, and ice cold drinks. Everybody pitches in to create a beautiful, delicious spread!

We usually let the kids sit on the picnic blankets. While we ladies sit sipping wine and chatting, the guys always end up gathered around the grill. Last year, I got my husband a great picnic accessory for his birthday: the BBQ Apron Tote with Chef’s Hat – he loves to wear the apron because it’s got handy pockets for his utensils, but I’ve only gotten him to wear the hat once. :)

Two other picnic accessories I’ll be bringing with me this weekend are the Melody MP3 Case with Speaker and a Brunello Insulated Neoprene Two-Bottle Wine Tote. The MP3 player fits easily inside picnic baskets, so it’s super easy to bring along.

What picnic accessories would you bring to a picnic at the park?

VRCZZ7HXKM2G

Taking a Day Trip: Picnic in the Mountains

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Even though it can be a little slower to hike with kids, we love to go for day trips to the mountains and bring a picnic along to enjoy. As a kid I always looked forward to these outings, and today picnics in the mountains are one of our kids favorite activities. We hike in a mile or two, settle down on some picnic blankets, and enjoy the view.

Picnic backpacks are a much easier choice for these kinds of trips than picnic baskets. With picnic backpacks, you just pack them, sling them over your shoulders, and off you go! And now that both my girls are old enough to hike on their own, we can carry more food instead of carrying the kiddos.

We load up our picnic backpacks with trail mix, crackers, sandwiches, cookies, and water, and hit the trail. The Cambria Deluxe Insulated Picnic Backpack for 4 is the perfect size for a family picnic, and keeps our food nice and cool while we hike. And it’s wonderfully simple to bring along a picnic blanket, because they’re compactable and light.

When we go camping, we always bring BBQ tools to grill up our dinner on the camp grill. We have several BBQ sets that are just the right size to bring on a camping trip, and fresh grilled burgers are one of our favorite camping meals. We also love to bring coffee, tea, and water totes to brew up some hot drinks in the morning.

When my husband and I head up for a romantic picnic for two in the mountains, we often bring our Caddy Insulated Wine Tote. This picnic backpack for two has plenty of room for some chilled wine and cheese, along with a picnic blanket for two. Nothing is more romantic that a romantic picnic in the mountains with white wine, grapes, and some crackers and brie!

Neighborhood Picnic

Monday, December 7th, 2009

I hear a lot of stories about neighborhood picnics and the fun that they can bring to communities. Remember the “old days” when we used to really know all of our neighbors? Well, thankfully, those days are not gone; I think they’re just harder to find.

One way to go about this is to just start talking to your next-door neighbors. They in turn may know the next house and the next house. Start creating a buzz in the air about having a huge neighborhood get-together, and call it the Annual Neighborhood Picnic – or whatever you feel comfortable calling it. Make it seem like a good idea – I think it IS – and you’ll probably get a lot of people saying, “What a great idea!” or “I was thinking we should do that, too!”

I think it’s in all of us to want to get to know our neighbors, it’s just a little harder these days for whatever reasons.

Reserve a pavilion at the closest park to your neighborhood and let everyone know the date. Make sure that the date works for at least your two or three closest neighbors; and I stress that one. Pavillion space should be free, but if it’s not, it’s usually just a deposit that you can get back.

For the first picnic, it might be a good idea to ask your neighbors what they’d like to bring and it would be better if we get any picnic gifts to the neighbours. There are always people who pride themselves in certain dishes and are just waiting to show their cooking skills to the community. Make sure you have a well-rounded assortment of dishes – don’t forget about vegetarians and vegans! – and you’re almost ready to go.

Bring a few outdoor games, a few baseball gloves, a basketball, sidewalk chalk, and a friendly dog if possible.

And have fun!

Back to School Picnic

Friday, August 7th, 2009

If you’re looking for a great way to get involved in your child’s schooling and want to meet some other parents, throwing a back-to-school picnic might just be your answer.

This is a fairly easy one to organize, too.

Decide on a day early in the school year. There are a couple reasons for this:

  1. If you live in a colder climate, it will still be warm in August and most of September;
  2. There should still be a sort of “new school year eagerness” going on for children and parents.

The best way that I’ve found to get this going is by getting to know your child’s homeroom teacher. After talking to him/her a few times, you may feel comfortable enough to her about putting a sign-up sheet on the door – or wherever the homeroom bulletin board is. There’s usually something like that for parents to look at for each classroom.

The only real tricky part of this is finding out the names of all the parents. And if you can’t, just get a class list and use that. In fact, that might even be better, depending on your taste. Simply create a sheet with all the names on it and leave a blank space after their names where parents can write in what they’d like to bring, like accessories, picnic baskets, etc. Simple.

You’ll need a basic cover sheet that lets parents know where and when the picnic will be and whom to contact should they have any questions. Just put your name and phone number on it, and you’re all set.

You’ll be a hit!

Hi Everyone…Welcome to Ellen’s Corner

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

Happy New Year…Welcome to Ellen’s Corner!

My name is Ellen and I am the host of what we call “Ellen’s Corner”.  Ellen’s Corner is a blog associated with www.PicnicSupplyWorld.com and set up to offer Picnic related Tips, Ideas, Recipes, Stories and More…

So, please join me and have some fun…who doesn’t enjoy a PICNIC!