A Vintage Picnic

 A picturesque garden picnic, vintage collectables, and a whole lot of heart and soul. We simply adore this gorgeous baby shower that Unna Burch and her husband threw for their friends and family to celebrate the impending arrival of their new son.

From Unna... We live in a forest in Wellington. It was beginning of Autumn and we were blessed to have a perfect summer-like day for our baby shower. We had set out picnic rugs, ate delicious food and celebrated the coming of our new son. Our back yard, amongst the native trees and birds, was the perfect setting.

I had organised and made everything myself, from foraging for flowers for the arrangements, making the food, hand squeezing lemons for the lemonade, crafting all the decorations and designing the invitations. We even used lots of herbs and veges from our garden as well as honey from our own bee hive to make the food on the day. Some may call me crazy (my husband especially) but there's nothing more rewarding than seeing all the ones you love enjoying every detail you've created.

I didn't really have a theme but i wanted to use lots of my second hand finds i have around my house (radios, chairs etc) + i love pastels. Also my husband and son wanted to be a part of the celebration so we decided against tradition, and invited guys too.

Here are details about what was made/done: 

Photography:
Our friend Gareth White took most of the photos - some were also taken on a disposable camera.

Invitations:
My husband and I designed these in Photoshop, and had them printed. I used bakers twine and made little flags stamped with the date of the shower to secure them. I hand wrote each envelopes address, which took a few nights in front of the telly, but so worth it.

The Food/dessert + drink:
Fried Chicken / Whole BBQ salmon cooked on the charcoal BBQ / Bread from our local Italian bakery / Corn on the Cob / Potato salad with a home-made lemon and herb mayo / Black quinoa and roasted pumpkin vegan salad with sunflower seeds and fresh herbs with a olive oil and raspberry vinegar dressing / Chickpea, black eye bean, butter bean, tomato and feta salad with a lemon and olive oil dressing / Floriditas Chocolate and Raspberry Vegan cake / Floriditas Orange and Ricotta Cake / with Greek honey yoghurt + cream / Homemade lemonade

Setting:
We had lots of blankets set out in areas on the lawn with cushions and picnic table trays that my husband made - for people to rest their drinks. He made 4 all together for our wedding and I re-used them for the shower. When I explained what I wanted him to make, I had said a square, white wooden breakfast tray with fold out legs but for the lawn. He did and amazing job. We also had our retro plastic loungers + tables and chairs so people could choose how they wanted to hang out. 

Decorations:
· pom pom vines
· strung hand cut words that said 'welcome baby Leo', and words from my favourite kids book, Where the Wild Things are - 'i'll eat you up i love you so' and 'let the wild rumpus start'
· I wrote all the signs for the food + lemonade + little thanks for coming signs I popped into my flower arrangements. I chose pastel blue and grey card for these.
· I made a pastel coloured garland and a friend had sewn cushion covers for all the cushions on the picnic rugs in matching colours. I also tied left over fabric around the paper straws.
· A stamp was made for the brown paper bags which had a fork drawing and the words 'ill eat you up i love you so'. Each bag had inside an eco friendly plate, knife, fork and napkin for the meal. Everyone asked us where we got the baskets from which they sat in. They were from my sister in-laws parent's fish and chip shop, now closed down. We somehow inherited these, and love them. One usually holds all my crafting bits and bobs and the other my stationary.
· I used my ceramic animals, my favourite Basset Hound and White Rabbit - which is actually a lamp as decorations + extra plastic ones which i primed and painted white + gave them party hats (party animals!) made from gold card, crêpe paper tassels.
· We also used our retro radio collection as decorations on the picnic trays. I especially love our pastelly mint and blue coloured ones

Flowers
· The flowers I used were mainly wild, native or growing in my garden, apart from the lotus pods and stock which i brought. I put these into jars and old tins I had.
· One of the best things I used (because of the texture) was the dark brown flax pods - which i foraged for up in the forest around our house. I got the idea from a friend who is a florist.
· The signs I had hand written for the arrangements said 'hey! Thanks for coming', I had glued these onto bamboo sticks and also glued a little yellow wooden bead onto the tips.

Published with permission, August 9, 2012