A Stylish Summer Picnic with Grand Illusions


summer picnic with Grand Illusions

[AD] This post is part of a current working relationship with Grand Illusions. A styling, images, thoughts and opinions are my own.

We are over halfway through the year and summer is in full swing. What I have really enjoyed this year is packing up a picnic basket and putting it in the boot of the car, collecting my son after school and driving with the dog to local, scenic picnic spots to enjoy the warm, late summer afternoons outside together. I have been working with home and garden retailer Grand Illusions for the past few months and I was really excited when I saw their summer collection which includes hand-blown recycled green glass tumblers, on-trend bamboo tealight holders and earthy bowls with detailed floral patterns. All these pieces are perfect to use for stylish summer picnics or casual summer dining, so I snapped a few bits up to share with you here on the blog.
summer picnic with Grand Illusions
summer picnic with Grand Illusions
summer picnic with Grand Illusions
summer picnic with Grand Illusions
summer picnic with Grand Illusions

The Celeste design has a casual blue floral pattern on a white background, while the Florido bowls are a deep, inky blue base with a white floral pattern. Even though they look like they cannot go in the dishwasher, they are all dishwasher safe (as washing up is the last thing you want to be doing on a warm summers day!)

summer picnic with Grand Illusions
summer picnic with Grand Illusions
summer picnic with Grand Illusions

The woven shopping bag below is not a new product, in fact, I’ve owned this from Grand Illusions for a while, but I’ve been using it all summer. It’s completely lightweight, but the boned structure of it means that it better supports picnic items than a tote bag. I chose this Paris shopper in yellow because I’m all about colour, but you can also get it in beige and black.

summer picnic with Grand Illusions

Summer DIY: How To Make A Gold And Grey Planter

I'm currently re-vamping my tired looking balcony (full reveal coming in a few weeks!) Since the sun has been shining in the past week (even though it's now pouring as I write this) I decided to get out and get some Vitamin D and work on part of the project which was to build a tall planter trough ready for summer flowers. To build and paint the planter takes no longer than a day, so it is perfect for a sunny Sunday DIY project. First stop was to get some load-bearing wood. My top tip if you are going to build a planter like mine is first check if there is anyone in your area selling used scaffold boards. Building regulations state that builders scaffolding boards have to be changed regularly, so you often get scaffold and building companies selling off their old scaffold boards for cheap on Ebay and Gumtree.

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