DIY Life

By Heather Craven

One of the best parts about summer is outdoor dining. There is something so refreshing about eating outside under an umbrella, enjoying a fresh breeze and the scent of flowers in the air.

For all the pleasures it offers, though, eating outdoors does present a few problems. Sturdy plastic dishes and flatware are a must. And you are not too likely to leave your condiments out on the patio table throughout the hot days. This means many trips to the kitchen for napkins, extra forks and condiments.

Designsponge recently featured a clever, cheap, and super cute solution to help cut down on kitchen trips and make outdoor summer dining a bit easier and more stylish.

Now that you are wrapping your sandwiches in an eco-friendly vinyl wrap, you can go a step further and carry those wrapped sandwiches in a neat woodgrain oilcloth lunch bag, courtesy of Derek and Lauren over at Design*Sponge.

To make the lunch bag, you'll need 1/2 yard woodgrain oilcloth, scissors, a sewing machine, thread, a ruler, and Velcro sticky dots. Derek and Lauren cut the pine woodgrain into three pieces, then sewed the pieces together. After turning the bag right side out, they attached the Velcro sticky dots, and the job was complete.

While many of the commenters like the oilcloth bag, a few think that the lunch bag really isn't eco-friendly at all. I think the bag is awful cute, and would argue the fact that if you use the bag every day, then it really is environmentally friendly, simply because you aren't using and tossing a paper bag every day.

One of the best parts about summer is outdoor dining. There is something so refreshing about eating outside under an umbrella, enjoying a fresh breeze and the scent of flowers in the air.

For all the pleasures it offers, though, eating outdoors does present a few problems. Sturdy plastic dishes and flatware are a must. And you are not too likely to leave your condiments out on the patio table throughout the hot days. This means many trips to the kitchen for napkins, extra forks and condiments.

Designsponge recently featured a clever, cheap, and super cute solution to help cut down on kitchen trips and make outdoor summer dining a bit easier and more stylish.

Design*Sponge is usually a great source for eye candy and DIY inspiration. Recently, they've been adding a weekly DIY feature with tutorials and the like. This week, we got a twofer as they've posted a fabulous project submitted by one of their readers.

Inspired by a corkboard (scroll to the very bottom to see it) created by a featured designer on the blog, the reader created her own tutorial for a baroque-style corkboard. The tutorial provides both directions and a template for creating this on your own. All you need is cork and a cutting tool.

This is a clever alternative to typical rectangular corkboards and is a great way to add visual interest by using different silhouettes in your space.