Camping Table Cloth

One of our beloved family activities is camping. Most campsites feature a picnic table for outdoor dining. I love bringing a piece of me to my camping space and a bright cheerful tablecloth is an easy way to do that. However, all too often the wind has other plans for my tablecloth!

I know they make devises to hold a tablecloth in place but I have never had good luck with them. They break. The pop off. They lose their shape. Even the cute little weighted clips fall off or have no power over the Missouri win.

Out of pure frustration, I have found a way of securing a tablecloth that the wind can not blow around. The solution was pretty easy: Grommets and Bungee Cords.

I selected an inexpensive (less than $5) vinyl tablecloth that I found at the dollar store. It is a bit "thin" but I think it will work for a while. The Husband found a bag of grommets at the local hardware store for under $5.00 as well.

He left the tablecloth unfolded to use the fold as a guide. He used the grommet kit to punch a hole in the corners. After that he continued using the grommet kit to set the grommets. (Never set a grommet? The whole process is very similar to setting a rivet in scrapbooking or a snap in sewing. I promise it is so easy you will wonder why you have never done it before!)

Just make sure that your holes are even and that they are parallel down both sides of your tablecloth.

After the four corners are set. move to the middle. The Husband selected to put two middle holes.

After the holes are are finished you will need bungee cords to connect both sides of the tablecloth together. You will not need very large bungee cords. Here is a photo of the underside of our picnic table with the bungee's secured.

Then you have a clean, pretty and well secured tablecloth to serve meals on while camping. I think you could do this to a fabric tablecloth but a vinyl tablecloth makes for easy clean up. Just squirt it down with a cleaning solution and you are ready for the next meal.