My daughter, who just turned 6, requested a tea party birthday this year with the girls in her class. I've never attempted a party at home before, but it seemed like the best location, given the theme. We decided all this about three months in advance of the party (she pretty much started focusing on her birthday immediately after Christmas was over), so I had plenty of time to plan. And, as it turned out, I needed all of that time!
The first thing I did was buy a stack of printed cardstock called the Haute Pink Collection from Jo-Ann's. Here's the same thing on Amazon. I did so many things with that stack of cardstock. First, I made teapot invitations. The template and instructions can be found here.
The next thing I did was make pennant banners using the same cardstock and some ribbon. Here's the template for that. (Add a thin flap on the top of the template so that you could fold it over the ribbon.)
The cardstock was also used to make placecards.
The party was scheduled to run for an hour and a half. The first half hour would be devoted to crafts. The second would be eating. And the third would be dancing. I decided on two crafts for the girls to do. One was a foam teapot treat holder from Oriental Trading. The other was stringing pearl necklaces; I also got the pearls from Oriental Trading.
The teapot treat holder was a hit. The girls liked putting it together, and it was relatively easy to do. I had the adults put on a drop of superglue for the knob handle so that it would dry quickly. Sticking on the spout and handle was also slightly tricky and required some adult intervention, but for the most part the girls were able to do it themselves. I added a cup of markers to the worktable so that the girls could decorate the finished teapots as well.
The beads were not such a good idea. I'd prepared lengths of string with clasps, and counted out the proper number of beads into Dixie cups for each participant, but it was difficult for some of the girls to string the beads. Some did better than others. In the end, we had to abandon that project because we ran out of time, and my husband had to string together the final few necklaces for the stragglers. The girls were happy with the finished product, though, and many wore their necklaces during the party.
For the food, I'd prepared three kinds of sandwiches (PB&J, turkey and cheese, and hummus), fruit salad, and three kinds of dessert (mini cupcakes, cookies, and macarons). The thing that really made the food fun was the serving tower I bought from Target, only $20. It was used to present the sandwiches first, and then the desserts. The cupcakes and cookies were homemade. The macarons came frozen from Trader Joe's ($5 for a dozen) - for me, DIY only goes so far.
And of course there was pink lemonade in a fancy pitcher ($13 from Target).
As a treat, I also let the girls drink from real china teacups and eat off real china plates (which were just the saucers that came with the teacups). I bought 12 matching teacups and saucers from English Tea Store for only $50. After the meal was over, I washed the teacups and saucers, wrapped them in bubble wrap, and put them in loot bags as a parting gift.
After eating, the girls decorated their own cupcakes. I'd prepared cupcake boxes so that they could take their masterpieces home in the loot bags as well. For the loot bags, I just attached onto plain white bags heart cutouts made from - you guessed it - the cardstock. That stack of cardstock is my new best friend. I'm making a shower curtain out of it next.
Then it was time for dancing. After all my preparation, I think it was the dancing (which required almost no preparation) that the girls loved best. They just jumped around to Kidz Bop for half and hour and worked off all that sugar. Everyone went home exuberant.
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