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Get Picnic Ready This Summer With Spotlight: What To Bring To A Picnic For The Perfect Outdoor Gathering
Summer is here and it's time to embrace the outdoors, enjoy the warmer weather and make the most of the season! Fun in the sun doesn't start and end with beach or pool days. Why not enjoy the great outdoors by hosting a picnic in the park or your backyard? Picnics are a great way to have a relaxed meal with friends or family while enjoying the great weather! They also offer a creative outlet with many ways to decorate your picnic spot for the perfect meal. Even if the weather is poor, some public parks even offer shelter so you can continue enjoying the outdoors with your picnicking pals.
Stuck on what to bring to a picnic? Spotlight has everything you need to throw a fun-filled outdoor dining experience. With an incredible range of picnicware, you can also find stunning and eye-catching home decor pieces to use as stylish centrepieces for your outdoor dining experience.
Quick Links
- Essential Servingware For The Perfect Picnic
- Bring Comfort With A Picnic Blanket
- Outdoor Cushions For Ultimate Summer Comfort
- Bring Your Indoor Dining Experience Outdoors With Our Table Linen Range
- Home Decor Accents For The Perfect Finishing Touch
- Picnic Baskets: A Picnic Essential
- How To Pack A Picnic Basket
- Delicious Picnic Food Ideas
- Keep Your Food Fresher For Longer
- Picnic Day Activities
Picnic Essentials: What To Take On A Picnic
The sun is out, and vibes are high! Time to pack for the perfect picnic. With a few things to consider, we'll take you through our favourite picnic essentials, all the way from the classic picnic blanket to fun, decorative ornaments.
Essential Servingware For The Perfect Picnic
When dining outside, the right servingware can make all the difference to a seamless picnic. At Spotlight you can find a wide variety of servingware that will have you covered for whatever meal! With a great range of disposable cups, cutlery, plates and bowls, you can also use durable melamine servingware for your outdoor adventures.
Melamine plates and cups are much sturdier than disposable tableware yet not as heavy as plates and cups made from ceramic or glass, making them an exceptional choice for outdoor dining. The lighter design makes them easy to transport around the park in a picnic basket. You can also find a range of incredible designs such as our stunning Positano melamine collection. This collection of melamine servingware boasts a stunning citrus pattern, perfect for infusing a summertime touch to your picnic.
Picnic Blanket
A classic symbol of the perfect summer picnic, a picnic blanket helps to create a relaxed atmosphere for a comfortable outdoor meal. When shopping for your picnic mat, you should keep in mind the number of guests you have invited to ensure there's enough room for both your guests and your food! It might be a better option to purchase an additional picnic blanket, overlapping the rugs for an adequate amount of space.
Why not infuse your personal style into your picnic experience by crafting a picnic rug from the flannelette fabric of your choice. Our handy flannelette picnic blanket project outlines everything you need to know about creating your very own picnic rug. Whether you go down the traditional route of the classic plaid picnic rug pattern or opt for a more decorative approach with our other flannelette fabrics, picnic goers will be impressed with both your organisation and creative skillset.
Picnic rugs provide a comfortable place to rest during other outdoor hangouts such as watching a movie at an outdoor cinema, attending a music festival or cheering on your local sports team. An essential addition to your collection of outdoor living essentials, a picnic blanket will have you prepared for any outdoor gathering.
Outdoor Cushions For Ultimate Summer Comfort
Elevate the comfort of your picnic setting with outdoor cushions. Durable and stylish, these outdoor cushions provide a place to rest your head as you lie down comfortably on your picnic blanket. They can be used as plush seating options on your blanket or to help evoke a relaxed aesthetic.
Crafted from durable materials, these cushions are designed to withstand weather conditions, such as the blaring sun or a cooling summer breeze. With a variety of colours and patterns to choose from, you'll be sure to find one that complements your own personal style.
Bring Your Indoor Dining Experience Outdoors With Our Table Linen Range
If you're wanting a more elevated outdoor dining experience, most parks offer park benches and tables for you to enjoy. However, make sure to arrive to the park earlier than your meeting time to ensure one is available for you and your friends!
Park tables make it easy to bring your indoor dining experience outside to the refreshing and peaceful ambience of the summer air! Flannel back tablecloths are a great option for decorating an outdoor table due to its durable backing and stylish aesthetic. Consider pairing your tablecloth with placemats for an additional layer of elegance!
Home Decor Accents For The Perfect Finishing Touch
When thinking what to take on a picnic, people usually suggest the more obvious essentials such as picnic blankets, baskets and food. But what about home decor pieces? You can create stylish centrepieces that instantly elevate your picnic arrangement with ease. Whether you're enjoying a meal on a park bench, table or relaxing on a picnic blanket, a vase displaying artificial flowers creates an elegant ambience that will set your picnic apart.
You can even incorporate ornaments including decorative objects, figurines and decorative signs to help establish your dining aesthetic. Not only do these bring style, but they can also be used to help keep your picnic blanket or tablecloth in place despite the summer breeze.
Picnic Baskets: A Picnic Essential
Designed to carry your picnic essentials including food and servingware, with ease, picnic baskets will make travelling to your outdoor gatherings a seamless process. A traditional wicker picnic basket brings a classic charm that will have your picnic or outdoor hang feeling like a cosy gathering with your friends.
How To Pack A Picnic Basket
Make sure to pack any heavier items first, so that they sit at the base of your picnic basket. Think plates, platters and any other servingware. These are typically your larger picnic items. This prevents them from crushing any snacks. Some picnic baskets even feature included servingware with straps to keep them from sliding around. With many different designs available, picnic baskets are sure to be an essential part of your outdoor gathering.
Delicious Picnic Food Ideas
There's no such thing as a picnic without a delicious selection of sweet and savoury snacks. Whether you're simply bringing a plate of sandwiches or going extra by baking a large, delectable dessert, there are a range of picnic food ideas that will have you and any other picnic-goer leaving the hang-out feeling well-fed.
Safety tip: Make sure to ask about any allergy concerns or dietary requirements before preparing any food for your gatherings.
Picnic Grazing Boxes
Fill one of our Alpen Catering Trays with a collection of your favourite savoury foods, including cheese, crackers and deli meats to create a delicious grazing box. You can arrange your treats within the grazing box to become aesthetically pleasing. Maybe you're cutting the cheese into adorable stars or arranging the deli meats into a rose-like shape in the centre of your grazing box. This catering tray from Alpen also features a clear lid, so you are able to easily view the contents at a glance, perfect if you're preparing both a sweet and savoury grazing tray.
Sandwiches
A fan favourite for outdoor gatherings, sandwiches are easy to prepare with many different spreads and fillings to choose from. Cut them into mini triangles for a quick finger food option. Most lunch boxes and food storage containers are designed to hold sandwiches with ease. Consider storing your sandwiches in these containers to help them stay fresher for longer.
Sweet Treats
Finish off your picnic by serving up delicious, sweet treats for your friends or family to enjoy. Cupcakes are a great option as when compared to serving up cakes, they don't require cutting or dishing up. You could even arrange other sweet treats such as lollies and chocolates on a serving platter for your guests to help themselves to.
Keep Your Food Fresher For Longer
Whether you're hosting or simply attending, when thinking about what to bring to a picnic, you should also think about how you will be storing your food. Learning how to keep food hot for a picnic and making sure your cold snacks are left feeling fresh is particularly important to ensure they keep their delicious taste but also helps to prevent food poisoning. This is where cooler boxes and bags are incredibly valuable! These boxes and bags are usually insulated to help keep your food fresher for longer! They also feature handy carry handles that make it easy to transport your food and drinks from one picnic spot to the next!
Bringing refreshing drinks along to the picnic? Shop our selection of flasks, insulated containers that are designed in the shape of wide bottles, perfect for both food and drinks. Our selection of flasks are great for both hot and cold food and beverages.
Picnic Day Activities
Summer days are perfect for bringing your indoor hobbies outside and letting your creativity flow while enjoying the summer weather. Try your hand at a few of these projects! Whether it's with friends or by yourself, these projects will combine the refreshing nature of the outdoors with the restorative charm of creative adventures to have you feeling at peace during your outdoor gathering.
Painting
Create colourful paintings and artistic designs! Bring along your paint brushes and favourite art paints to recreate this painting project. If with friends, have everyone prepare a design in advance and print it off in advance to make a stencil for them to trace onto the canvas. From there it's time to paint!
Beautiful Beaded Bracelets
Making bracelets is a fun way for kids to express their creativity during their school summer holidays. It allows them to experiment with their own personal style, selecting beads of various shapes and colours to create colourful accessories.
Colourful Beanies
Who said picnics had to be spent outside with friends? You can enjoy some alone time in the summer weather putting your knitting skills to the test. Although the weather is warmer, knitting beanies are a great way to bask in the sun while preparing for the cold weather in the winter. Try your hand at our Caron Cakes Basic Knit Beanie Project, perfect for both beginner and expert knitters!
Plan For The Perfect Picnic With Spotlight
Make the most of the summer weather and bring your indoor dining experience outside with Spotlight's incredible picnic range! With everything you need to throw the perfect gathering, you'll be ready for any outdoor adventure! Shop our stylish and practical selection of outdoor servingware, picnic rugs and more for your next summer picnic!
Explore our full picnic collection, online or at a Spotlight store near you today!
