An American Picnic Craft Segment with Chef Tess Today on Valley Dish

Today I will be on NBC 12 Phoenix at 3:30 doing a craft segment  on Valley Dish as  part of the Picnic Theme Show! Don't miss it folks! It's going to be really zany fun! My basket is loaded! I'm ready to go!

One of the first things we do is take a sturdy laundry basket lined with a clean blanket cloth or towel for some of our essentials.  If I'm feeling especially Daisy Duke, I'll even tie a little knot like this. Ya know, just to be "country" and "down-homey". 

This cloth is also functional. It ensures that our utensils  stay clean and that our dishes don't rattle. It also is a lot stronger and less expensive than a lot of the picnic baskets out there. Note, we don't use it for dirty laundry. It's just for picnics.  I know you were worried about that. We also have a separate cooler for food that needs to stay cold. The cooler rides in the air conditioned part of the car. This is just for the non-cold items.

Salvage Chick  Diane Holyoak came up with this great  Americana Vintage  picnic box design for me. I've known Diane for years and am always impressed with her creative twist on things. Usually it revolves around some crazy piece of furniture she finds. She's remarkably clever and resourceful.  Maybe that's why we get along so well.  So when I saw her shabby sheik picnic accessories this last week,  I knew they needed a home with me. Much thanks to her for the great details in this project!  Look at this! It's an antique she re-made into a treasure box of goodies!

 The cups are old tin measuring cups! They're cleaned and sanitized of course, but way too cha-cha for words!

 The handles are just dolled up with some fabric tied on, but it's just so dang perfect!

She made this adorable ruffled star hand towel as well! It's perfect since I get to cover hand washing in this segment. Thanks Diane! You seriously rock lady!

My own personal touches include a few pet rocks. One to hold the dinner plates.

 This one for the dessert plates. I don't know what to name my pets yet. Any suggestions?

I'll be bringing my vintage  Love Bubble Cookie Tins (I've done a full tutorial for them already on the blog).

  I will be bringing a few of my newest creations. These are lemon curd strawberry butter bars. They will travel in the cookie tin for fun. Of course, I could totally share that recipe here...but it will have to be later. 

I really had fun with the tablecloth! It just screams kids and baseball. It's like apple pie and hot dogs right? It took hours on end to piece together all those jean squares too. You'll never be able to be as cool as me. Okay...brace yourself. It's actually pretty simple.

The quilted tablecloth is just a yard of jean fabric that I purchased pre-pieced at the fabric store. It actually was made already cut into squares and sewn together like that. I just finished the edges with the bright red polka-dot fabric.  

 I separated a white silk daisy and sewed a single one on each corner. Then I fastened a foot of gingham ribbon to the middle of each flower and tied it in a bow.

 I found great information on picnic food safety that I will be sharing on the segment from   here. 

Hopefully this gives you some great ideas for an All American picnic! There you go!