Speaking of decorating with what you have, take a look at the picture above. That's the scene under the cherry trees in my backyard right now.

We're hosting my daughter's fifth birthday party tonight and I needed some dinner seating for the kids, so we bought four hay bales from a farmer out north, covered them with vintage quilts and built a table to put between them.

The tabletop is an old door we've kept around for a few years and the legs are scrap lumber we had in the garage. I plan to paint the legs eventually.

Even the birthday bunting hanging above is repurposed. It's made from old sheets purchased at thrift stores. Just cut triangles and feed them through the sewing machine one after another.

We love the "new" table and chairs so much we're going to use it all summer and probably in the fall, too. The only thing we needed to purchase here were the hay bales--$5 each multiplied by 4 = $20.

One thing you should keep in mind: after buying the hay bales we learned we should have bought straw instead. I'm a novice when it comes to these things, but apparently hay has seeds in it so you can't use it as mulch in your garden. Straw doesn't, and straw won't make my husband sneeze like the hay does.

Live and learn.

Do you have any clever ideas for frugal outdoor seating? I've seen people use cinder blocks (stacked together to create a base) with a pad on top, similar to this.

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