Vintage Picnic Party

It's my birthday on Monday Jan 25th, and to distract myself from the thought of getting older (boo!) I've decided to throw a vintage-style picnic party on Sunday afternoon (yay!) It's summer here in New Zealand, so what better time to have an outdoor bash?

I got my beau to help me create a photo for the email invite (email = not vintage, I know, but I only decided to do this 2 weeks ago!) Here's the pic:

Yes that's me in the picture, trying my best to look genteel. Oh and that's my awesome new vintage snakeskin handbag peeking out from behind the basket (more on that in another post about the ridiculous purchases I made over xmas).

So I've been scrambling around trying to get stuff organised for the picnic. I've got a great vintage picnic basket (in the photo), and I've also managed to procure a heap of cutesy flowery china cups and side plates, as well as some bottles for beverages. I'm going to try making an old-fashioned creamed alcoholic lemonade recipe - reviews and recipe details to follow after the picnic!

Amassing the supplies...
the 30-odd china teacups and plates and two baskets cost a mere $7 for the lot at SuperShed. The glass stoppered beverage bottles were a slightly more annoying $7 each from PlasticBox.

I also decided it would be fun to have old-style games to play, so I've organised to have croquet, petanque and badminton (I bought some old wooden racquets and we're hoping to find a shuttlecock made with feathers instead of plastic, but they're hard to find!)

I was discussing the gaming options with my beau and he suddenly said "I want to play that game where you roll a hoop with a stick!"

A bit of internet research reveals that hoop rolling or 'hoop trundling' was indeed a hugely popular pastime both at the turn of the century as well as today. We decided it was too awesome not to include in the festivities (and much more exciting than horseshoes, which I was also considering).

We looked everywhere we could think of to find flat profiled wooden hoops at short notice, but alas have come up empty, so I bought a couple of large plastic hoops from a toy store and we'll have to make do.

I've been doing so much research and ideas-gathering regarding this picnic that I want to write them up as a resource for anyone else that wants to throw a similar vintage-style picnic and wants ideas for games, recipes, decor, props, etc.

I'll post a review of how my picnic party goes next week, assuming it goes ahead at all - the forecast for Sunday is currently for rain :(