Summer is two-thirds way gone: do you know where your party is??? Have you had an outdoor fête yet? Hosted an eve of cocktails and mosquitos? Trampled that lawn a tad?
What in the H are you waiting for??? Soon you'll be fighting to keep "Jingle Bells" out of your head while facing a teeming mall, and then you'll see... You'll think back on summer and chastise yourself for not making the most of it.
Consider this a friendly reminder: Get together; outside.
Maybe this will help?
For the Wee Ones
SUCK UK BBQ Bucket; ImagineChildhood.com
Make your kiddies happy; get a few of their friends together (I can't handle more than two), buy or make a tipi (or use a tent, fine), buy or make a bucket barbecue for hot dogs (obviously under strict adult supervision -- and I know that red "Fire" bucket looks funny under the heading "For the Wee Ones"), and voila: backyard camping. In style, I'd say...
Daytime
Restoration Hardware Croquet stet and Bocce set
Cocktails, outfits (hats!), vintage or artfully reproduced gaming paraphernalia, and lawn: GO!
Nighttime
123NonStop.com
Outdoor screen/bed sheet, DVD projector (available for rent at most larger video stores), pay off/invite the neighbours, lawn chairs, blankies and BEER. Oh yeah, and movie (Rushmore is a good one.)
Purely Canadian: Patio Lanterns
Tikis, butane, paper, 'novelty' (think kooky plastic shapes like hot peppers) or hurricane: just the word 'lanterns' -- KIM MITCHELL -- makes me tingle with party vibes.
Foreign Balcony Affair
And another good idea from afar, that may never reach us... Look at this amazingness! Dutch designer Reinder Bakker has turned his design eye on the black sheep of outdoor entertaining: the balcony. Hopefully, his ingenious balcony kitchen/dining adjunct is the beginning of the market at large looking at this lonely, suspended space as having great party potential. Even if we can't buy this yet (or ever), we can certainly try and borrow, however crudely, some of these ingenious ideas for our own balcony fete, before the summer's end.
Have you thrown an outdoor party yet? What did you do?
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