Alfresco eating table decoration inspiration

I am not a neat gardener but I come from a whole line of gardeners. My grandfather and great grandfather grew vegetables and my mums garden is the size of a postage stamp and the most beautiful garden I have ever been in.

The first stage of creating a structure was finding some branches and these are stripped hazel bargained for with a gardening mate and stripped by him because he loves doing that kind of thing. Joining them together with string was a simple affair and stringing a lantern down for evenings in the garden and to create a lovely ambience was easy.... then the whole thing fell down and I had to start again!

Create two tripods joined together with strong string

Second time around I buried the legs of the tripod into large plant pots and made the whole thing more stable. If you can bury them a foot you should make it stable enough to cope with breezes but not high winds so remember to go and dismantle it when the winds are coming!

Here you can see my knotting was hardly sophisticated so I am not going to win any prizes there but I knew my structure would not be up long term and it has certainly done the job temporarily. I think I would like to make the structure a little more secure and so I may add some more knotting as soon as I can find the other string. This string came from Nutscene they do a great variety of colours and are a British company. https://nutscene.com

Now for the lantern. This beauty was given to me by someone who had found it in a skip and lovingly restored it and it is one of the lovelies things I own. What a gift! I was so delighted by it I almost cried - thank you Judy. However, there are many hanging lanterns on the market and in fear that this one may fall I'll probably swop it frequently over the Summer.

Now all there was left to do was to dress the table and I chose our Bird on the wire design, using 2 table runners on a square table but one would have worked too, napkins and coasters, cushions and tea towels. We hope you like the result.

Do tag us if you create a beautiful alfresco table on Instagram or Twitter @MollyMacLiving we would love to see.