Thursday, June 20, 2013

Picnic Time

It was picnic time again for the women in our church.  We planned to eat outside under a pavilion, but it was cold, breezy, and rainy, so we chose to move our picnic indoors.  It allowed us to enjoy our time together without getting too chilled.

Our picnic lunches -

When trying to decide what to do for this event I decided to use the white pencil boxes we used for one of our graduation luncheons - here

They act as the plate or lunch box for all the individually wrapped / packaged foods we served.


I had previously purchased some vintage hankies from ebay, (Long enough ago that I had them sitting around waiting for the right moment to use them, and have not saved the info), and thought they would be lovely in the boxes instead of napkins. They served as a favor for the guests.


I tried to keep things with the blues and white theme as much as possible, but enjoyed adding a few touches of the other colors found in the hankies (purple, pink, green).

The meal included:

- a pasta salad (we call noodle cashew salad)
packaged in Ziploc bowls with their traditional blue colored lids.


This salad includes cashews, but they get soggy if you put them in too early, so I bagged a few cashews in a glassine bag for the guests to pour on top of their salad.


It really is yummy!


Sandwiches were a Torta Roll (from Costco)with a spread of mayo and honey mustard, a couple slices of beef, muenster cheese, and a piece of lettuce - put into a glassine bag and wrapped with twine and washi tape.


You'll notice that glassine bags, bakers twine, and washi tape was my fun combo for this event.

We had a few snap peas ..., bagged in glassine bags and wrapped with bakers twine ...,


and a serving of original Sun Chips ..., also packaged in glassine bags and decorated with the bakers twine and washi tape.


We served pineapple lemonade and water for the drink, contained in cute bottles wrapped with twine to hold the straw.


Forks and napkins were wrapped together with twine for an easy pick up at the end of the table.


I didn't get a close up of the dessert, but it is on the table too - at the right of the cashews is a plate of shortbread cookies (from Costco - they are square shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate). They too are wrapped inside a glassine bag with some twine and tape.  To their right is a bowl or pan of ice cream cups - vanilla ice cream with strawberry swirl. (I was planning this when it was warm ..., even hot ..., and had no idea the weather was going to turn cold for us.  I guess I should have planned hot chocolate for this picnic..., maybe next time!)


The table was set up from left to right, and created a puzzle like creation as the guests filled their box with goodies.


I used some flowers I had from one of our son's wedding dinners for the table centerpieces. They were the perfect color for the event.


Here is the panoramic view of the area we set up inside, instead of outside in the cold.  Indoor picnics are not so bad! We didn't have the scenery we hoped to have, but we did have the warmth we needed.



Last year's boxed picnic lunch we did for the same event can be found here.

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Here are some of the recent ideas I found as I was trying to come up with what I wanted to do for the picnic luncheon above.
Here is an awesome idea for keeping your lunches cold

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cute ideas at indulgy
(I love berry boxes)






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This boxed lunch party comes from Lorajean's Magazine
This is held indoors, but could easily be taken outdoors.




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There is a How To DIY this Box Lunch for a Picnic or Party at OSP.






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