11 Tips For Summer Entertaining

Depending on who we’re hosting or what the party is, we’ll often ask people to bring drinks that they want to share and then we’ll have ice in it and people bring drinks of their preference. So that’s another entertaining, made simpler hack is encourage people to bring drinks that they like in addition to what you are offering. Another option for a beverage cooler. They’re outdoor furniture side tables, but they can also be used as storage containers. So what they are is they’re round side tables that pop up like a bar table. And what they’re actually meant for is you can put. Ice in the bottom of it, and then drinks inside. And then you can use the top as a table. Welcome to the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast with DIY Healthy Lifestyle blogger Ahna Fulmer empowering you to transform your life one imperfect day at a time. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast. I am your host, Ahna Fulmer. Today we are chatting 11 outdoor entertaining tips so that you can decrease stress and make hosting family and friends a breeze this summer. I don’t know about you, but we are super excited for warm weather over here. We have always loved entertaining and. Over the past several houses, especially our second house where we had the most space, we often hosted picnics at that house. We would have three to four picnics over the summer, and we’d have anywhere from 50 to a hundred people. We had also installed an above ground pool at that house, and we loved hosting. We loved hosting. We very much look forward to being able to do that again one day. We barely have the space for us and our stuff in this current rental house, so we are biting our time. We can’t really fit more than like two families at a time over here, but that’s okay. We’re grateful. It’s enough for right now, but I want to empower you with some of my tips. This was several years ago now. Wayfair reached out to me to actually write an article for their website on my own hosting tips for the summer, and now I’m sharing them with you, whether it’s a picnic with friends, a reunion with family, a cookout with neighbors, a potluck with the church. Or a barbecue with the team, whatever it is. One of the best things about summer vacation is the hours that we spend outside making memories with friends and family around food. I recognize that along with this can also come a lot of stress planning, the hosting, the trying to figure out how to best serve people, et cetera. So I am sharing my 11 tips for entertaining outside. Number one, consider a deck buffet for serving. There are so many different things that you can use for this. You guys, you could build one check on Pinterest. You could use leftover TRX decking. To simply build a little side table, but it is so nice to have a designated spot in your outdoor space that you just set the food on. I know this sounds like a little thing, but again, you wanna think, think ahead. Think several steps ahead. If you have a larger group of people over, you need to sit to eat at your table. Right, so the table’s not gonna be a great place to put your spread of food, have some sort of deck buffet, but one that you can leave there. One that you don’t need to keep moving if you wanna move it. Consider putting wheels on the bottom. They’re super easy to do. Again, you can Google that too, like it’s really easy. I’ve done that to several different things because I wanted a table that was mobile, so I just added wheels to the bottom. But consider investing in an outdoor deck buffet. You can place the platters or the dishes of food to hold, drink dispensers to make serving. Easier. I ages ago reclaimed an old metal baker’s rack and it has served as our outdoor buffet for quite a few years now. I restored it once upon a time and it doesn’t really stay fresh, if you will, which I kind of have given up on trying to restore, like make it look nice. But it does work really, really well. Facebook marketplace. Great. Great way to find deck buffets or outdoor buffets. Build your own from Trex. Deck options are limitless. Number two, a large water dispenser. It’s amazing actually how often I get asked to bring mine places. I think this is a worthwhile investment. You just simply get a large water dispenser. Costco often sells them like nice glass ones for not very expensive, maybe about $29. You can easily get them on Amazon. I will include the links for mine, but a water dispenser is an easy way to provide hydration for a large gathering. For added visual peel or flavor, I have often sliced up lemons, limes, strawberries, cucumbers, blueberries for a fruit infused flavored water. Super, super easy. Buy a dry mix. If you’re really serving a big group, consider like mixing lemonade, like a lemonade mix into it. This is a super easy way to stress less over drinks or just put water in it. Just put water in it, especially for the summer to keep everybody hydrated. Another idea for your back porch is just to keep a jug. I actually have one in my workout room that you can actually like pump the top. You often see them in business offices. Hopefully you guys know what I’m talking about, where it’s like just a five gallon water jug that has a pump dispenser on top. Another great thing to throw onto your back porch. Number three, a disposable paper goods hatty. You guys, this is an entertaining tip, period. One of my top tips. This makes, uh, it sounds like such a silly thing, but to just simply have all of your serveware like plates, dessert plates, bowls, napkins, and your silverware in one spot, and then you just score it all put together. So here’s what we do, uh, for another entertaining made easy hack. And again, I’ll certainly share the link to ours, but we keep this caddy upstairs, so that’s super easy. So like if you know our parents stop in or whatever and we’re having pizza, we literally just take the caddy out of the cupboard. We set it on the countertop, that’s it. Everyone just uses paper plates, paper goods. When it runs out, we take it down to the basement. There’s one large shelf, or it used to be in our garage in our last house, one large shelf that just houses all of our bulk paper goods. So that would be like our paper plates, our paper bowls, our napkins, our plasticware, and it just simply stays in this one spot. So when we say refill the caddy kid or whomever takes it down, and you literally just have everything right there and you fill it up. This is such a simple way of stressing, less so considered buying the disposable paper goods in bulk as well to keep the cal the caddy fully stocked and don’t forget to recycle. Number four basin to hold plastic cups and a marker. This is, again, entertaining made simple, whether it’s outside or inside. We use this all of the time. We have a metal. Bin that houses plastic cups, just like solo cups. And then I tied a permanent marker to the handle. Whether we have parties, whether we’re inside or outside, doesn’t matter. We just bring this up and then people label their cups. Then we have cups easily available. And again, you just store the stuff all in the same spot, keep it all in the same spot. And again, that marker tied. How many times have you been like, oh, I should get out a marker for everyone to mark their cups. Just tie it to your cup bin. That’s it. Entertaining. Made simple stress less so you have more time to socialize with the people you love. Number five. Again, more bins. More bins. We’re all about storage and organization. Over here. I keep a bin for reusable, outdoor serving wear, so I have a plastic, a blue plastic bin that houses a tablecloth, an outdoor tablecloth, a large reusable, kind of like that heavy. But it’s light too, but like a heavier duty plastic, uh, salad bowl, and then two serving trays and they look cute. They’re flowery. They’re, you know, summary looking, they’re colorful. There’s all kinds of stuff like this, even just on Amazon. And if you guys want to avoid like paper goods and stuff, there’s also tons of reusable plates as well that you could keep on that caddy. That would be another hack. But I keep this all in a bin. This is sort of like my summer entertaining bin. Sometimes at the bottom it’s bin. I will also have bubbles that the kids can blow. I’ll have sparklers or chalk. It’s just kind of the summer entertaining bin. I just keep everything at the bottom and then it’s all in one spot. I just bring up the bin and we take what we need out of it. Number six, a drink cooler. Now, I mentioned that I have two actually, large water dispensers, so we do use that. But another thing is to just have a rolling beverage cooler. That you fill up with ice and then you throw like packs of seltzer waters or bottled water or soda or whatever it is that you’re wanting to keep Cool. And we often have somebody bring this. So if, depending on who we’re hosting or what the party is, we’ll often ask people to bring drinks that they want to share, and then we’ll have ice in it and people bring drinks of their preference. Not everybody likes seltzer waters like we do over here. So that’s another entertaining, made simpler hack is encourage people to bring drinks that they like in addition to what you are offering. Oftentimes these have a bottom shelf. You can put added storage down there. Maybe you even have a plastic bin down there that you keep other goods in that you can just keep closed when you’re not needing it. Another option for a beverage cooler. I have this as well. You can tell we did a lot of entertaining. I have two of these actually, and they’re side tables. They’re outdoor furniture side tables. They desperately need redone. I need to figure that one out at some point. But they can also be used as storage containers. So what they are is they’re round side tables that pop up like a bar table. And what they’re actually meant for is you can put ice in the bottom of it and then drinks inside, and then you can use the tap as a table. I actually tend to use them more for storage. So I will include things like bug spray, suntan lotion, baby wipes for messy hands. Uh, whatever you tend to use on a regular basis is a great place to store those things. Just be aware if you leave them out, stuff will get very, very runny and hot. So just remember if you’re storing stuff for the summer, which I do. Um, Just be aware. It could be warm, like your suntan lotion, for example. It’d get a little hot, so just be careful or keep it, uh, in the shade. Number seven, an outdoor trash can. An outdoor trash can. This is such a simple thing, and yet it’s amazing how often I go to other people’s houses and they’re entertaining outside and they have to bring their kitchen trash can out. Y’all. This is a very, very budget friendly way of making entertaining outside a little less stressful. Just get yourself an outdoor trashcan. Any trashcan works for this, any trashcan, and we literally just have a kitchen trashcan that sits on our back porch. We’ve done this for, for years. Not all of our houses, we just had an outdoor trash can. A little hack is put the extra trash can liners at the bottom of the trash can so that when you take out the old liner, you have a bunch of new ones at the bottom. These are also very waterproof. Again, I, we’ve been doing this for years and years and water doesn’t really get inside. Not if you have, I should clarify this, not if you have one with like a normal lid. A lid that fully covers. So the one that we have outside is a heavy duty plastic one and the lid fully comes around the lip. Does that make sense? I’m realizing as I’m saying this, that not all trash cans would be waterproof, so just be aware of that. When you keep one outside, just make sure that you get one where the lid. Covers the entire lip. It’s not like one of those flippy ones, you know what I’m saying? The one that every single child known to mankind likes to hit and watch it spin. Not that kind. That’s gonna get water inside. Just make sure that the lid covers the rim. Hopefully that makes sense. Number eight, a solar light table umbrella. Years ago, several years ago, I did a sponsored post with Wayfair. And I got this umbrella from them. We still have it. I absolutely love it. I think one of my children broke the handle. Hopefully we can fix it, but this is a great umbrella and there’s a lot of different options. But one way that you can add this to any outdoor table, of course you picnic table’s kind of, uh, understood for outdoor entertaining. But here’s a little hack for you if you want to add a. An outdoor umbrella to your table. You just drill a hole in the center of it and drop in an umbrella. That’s it. That’s exactly what I did to our old seven foot picnic table that we’ve had for over a decade. Talk about needing a remodel I’ve already made over this table like this. Stable, staying at this house, hopefully our. Landlords are okay with that. Cause I do not wanna take this table with me. But we still use it. We still use it. You guys, literally, this table is so old. Let me tell you how frugal I am right now. Our poor guest, this is not an entertaining tip. This is, don’t do this, but we literally have the one bench is supported with two by fours. Like we laid two by fours on the top of the bench because it’s rotting. I didn’t want one of our guests to fall through the bench. Oh, so on the one side of the table, the one bench, you’re gonna sit on two by fours, like two inches higher than the people on the other side. No lie, sit at our table at your own risk. We should probably have a warning sign somewhere. Anyway, I’m like, why am might, why I’m not gonna buy a new table now. Not for this house. Like, I don’t know what kind of property we’ll be at. Maybe I’ll want a round table, maybe I won’t. Different kind of table. Anyway. Moving on super easy. I’ll include the link for ours, but, uh, it has solar lights attached to it. So, um, you flip a little switch and the pretty little solar lights come on, on the arms underneath the umbrella provides shade. Such an easy addition to any outdoor table. Number nine, a splash pad. Oh my word. This talk about budget friendly, low-cost, way to provide hours of entertainment for your kids in the summer, like the splash pads are so cheap. I think the one that we got was, oh my word, I don’t even remember. Super cheap. Super cheap. And our kids, they use it on the front. Um, the front yard. They’ve used it on the deck. They’ve used it on a patio. Such a, it is such a great idea and adults enjoy it too, but it just adds that like water fun. You can also include some water guns, cuz they can fill it up at the bottom of the splash pad and have like little water gun fights is what my kids do. So a splash pad, super fun, super low cost. Who needs a pool? When you have a splash pad, it’s much easier to clean up after as well. Number 10, mosquito tiki torches. The screw on Peaky torches are a great addition for a deck for a patio. You can use the in-ground torches that actually like, uh, you push into the landscaping. I do encourage you to consider ones that you can reuse here after here, go for metal again. Metal can be redone 5 million times. I have metal stuff that I have resprayed with an outdoor spray paint so many times and it is so much cheaper than buying new tiki torches every year or new anything like metal’s. A great, great investment cuz I ha like you can redo it so many times. So consider the repurposable Repurposable. Nope. Reusable. There we go. English is hard. Reusable metal tiki torches. We have the kind that you can screw onto a deck, and we’ve used them well since our very first house, so over a decade. So mosquito, tiki and candles. Just any type of outdoor mosquito candle. It adds ambiance and it keeps those pesky creatures at bay. Number 11, a rock and fireside retreat, not just a fireside retreat, a rocking one. All right. Our last house, we’ve added fireplaces not only to the inside of every house. I’m a little obsessed with fire, love, fire. I love fireplaces. My husband can attest to this. I will sit outside by a fire way longer than he will. He is like ready to go in and I’m. Happy to keep sitting by a fire. I love fires. We also added outdoor fires to like every single one of the houses that we renovated as well. The one that has gotten the most press on the worldwide web, uh, including multiple features, was our last fixer upper, and I will include the links in the show notes, but I shared multiple hacks for creating that magazine worthy backyard fireside retreat. And what we did is we took metal canisters. They were actually trash cans and put a five gallon plastic bucket, super cheap, five gallon plastic bucket inside, filled that with concrete, and then put a massive four by four by eight foot post. Dropped it in there, held it while the concrete solidified quikrete. And then you fill in around that five gallon bucket within the trash can. Of course, the trash can’s bigger than the five gallon bucket with the dirt, and you have a planter, but you make four of them, put them in whatever order you want, maybe a rectangle, maybe a square. And now that you have the posts, you string solar lights to all four posts around the top. Compared to a lot of the other options out there. This is incredibly budget friendly because a lot of people, when they create these like outdoor planter, fireside retreat areas, they’re using much more expensive materials to make this happen. Sometimes you have to run electric. No electric necessary here, no wiring. It’s just solar lights. It’s trash cans. I think each of these trashcans were like 19 bucks. I spray painted them. Super, super cute. And then we also DIYed our own brick fire pit. This last house that we did, the French country cottage, I got two massive skids of reclaimed bricks. I’ve shared it before, but we had so much brick at this house, we repurposed it for a million different things. One of the things that I built was a brick fire pit in the back. The tutorial link is included. This has also been featured on multiple different platforms, wayfair spruce.com, the spruce. The point is this, it is literally just outdoor adhesive and bricks. That is it. I’ve had several questions over the years, including concerns about bricks exploding. Apparently it can be a thing that if bricks get hot enough, they explode. All I can tell you is that I, we had this fireplace for several years, had many fires in it, and I have never had that happen. My parents have also had a reclaimed brick fire. Hit and has also never experienced that. One of the tips is the way that we’ve designed it, they are slightly offset. So they are not like air is getting through. You can see it when you click on the link, you’ll be able to see the picture. That might be one of the reasons we’ve never had that issue. My parents is design the exact same way. Maybe it’s just cuz the air’s getting through. I’ve never had a brick explode, put it that way. And I’ve also had many other people say the same thing. They’ve never had a brick explode, so I guess. Fyi, I guess that’s a possibility. Never had an issue. And I’ll tell you what, this is a much cheaper option than buying a 36 inch fire pit. So anyway, there’s a lot of different tips, but one of the other things that I wanna share with a backyard fire pit that this is also going to make entertaining easier is there’s a couple fun fireside essentials to add to this space. Maybe you already have an outdoor fire pit. Here’s a couple, uh, bonus. Outdoor entertaining tips for Stressless hosting this summer. Couple tips for your fireplace Area number one, that bar side table and drink cooler that I mentioned. There’s a lot of different brands, but again, the one that we have, this sits out by, or I should say, sat at our other house out by the fire pit. And then what we had in it was like a whole bunch of products that we used anytime we were outside at the fire. So again, you can fill it with ice and put drinks in it, or you can house some of your most used products for your fire pit. Some of these products would also include wipes, again for messy, sticky hands after those s’mores bug spray, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, paper plates, telescoping roasting sticks. And then bags for trash. Let me say that one more time, because again, you guys, you don’t have to have this like fancy bar table cooler thing. You can just have an outdoor container that stays out by your fire pit that holds these things. But after many, many, many years of enjoying outdoor backyard fires, here are the things that we kept in this container. Baby wipes, bug spray, sunscreen, hand sanitizer. Paper plates, helo scoping, roasting sticks, napkins, and extra bags for trash. Because of course what happens, you use the baby wipes, you need trash. You use the plastic, or you use the paper paper plates, you need a trash bag. So just keep trash bags in this container. Second idea for your fire pit is to have an airtight storage container for s’mores. We used to use a, uh, it was actually like a, one of the cereal pouring, like plastic cereal containers. We would keep graham crackers, the chocolate and the. Um, marshmallow is just all in this one container that we kept in our kitchen, and then we would just take it outta the cabinet and bring it out. Does make it a lot easier. Don’t forget that outdoor entertaining bin, right? Don’t forget that because you can even set out a tray if you don’t have a table. It’s got your trays. It’s got your bubbles, it’s got your sparkler, right? Don’t forget your outdoor bin. Mosquito repellent candle. So this is the third we had the, the fireside container, right? That had all of those little things that you’re gonna wanna keep out there. And then two, your s’mores container, three mosquito repellent candles. A hack that I used for our fireside retreat at our last house is I took. Plant hangers, the kind that taken to the ground, and typically you would hang a potted plant instead of hanging a plant. I hung mosquito repellent candles by the chairs. So that’s an idea. You just get like the candles that have a handle on them and you hang those candles. Number four, a cooking grate. Now the d I Y tutorial to create your own brick fire pit. You can also use concrete blocks, by the way. You can use a lot of things to create your fire pit in the back. Concrete blocks, haves, you can use any of those. We just happen to have bricks, so we use those. It’s a 36 inch diameter r our tutorial. So a 36 inch fire pick cooking grate will sit on top. You can do hot dogs, you can do hamburgers. They come in a variety of sizes. By the way. You can do like grilled cheese, you can do sandwiches. I mean a whole host of campfire recipes, but that kind of makes it fun too. You can actually do dinner around the fire. Potatoes are so many things you can do. There is nothing like food cooked over an open flame. Ugh. I’m hungry just thinking about it. And then one of the last ideas is, uh, number five, fireside essential. This maybe isn’t essential, but it’s a great tip, is the right plants. There’s actually mosquito repellent plants that tend to keep insects at bay. I actually have a whole tutorial on this too, how to create mosquito repellent. Planters. I can tell you Mint is one of the the key ones in it, interestingly enough. But you can also just do planters like whether it be ones that you just create seasonally or I created a wall of planters at this particular fireside retreat. And lavender, mint and lavender are the two mosquito in theory, supposedly mosquito repellent. Plants. So they also smell delicious and they look beautiful. So consider lastly around your fireside retreat area, mosquito repellent plants. I hope you have gotten some ideas for entertaining this summer because again, the beauty. Of the summer season is time spent outside making memories with the ones you love. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast. I would love to hear your thoughts from today, head to your preferred podcasting platform, and give the show an honest review and let me know what you think. Remember, you cannot be redefined, only redeveloped, one imperfect day at a time. Your story matters and you are loved.