July 22, 2017May 19, 2019 familyflourish

Mother Daughter Tea Party

Parties

by Heather Bock

I’ve been wanting to host a tea party for my daughter and her friends and their moms for a long time, and I’m glad I finally did it. This party was supposed to be in the spring, but I didn’t get around to it until summer. That’s ok–a summer tea party was nice, too. I’m posting this here so others might get ideas from what we did just like I get ideas from what others plan.

I ended up using a bird/butterfly theme for the tea party. I had the ruffled crepe paper my mom helped me make several years back for Little E’s Sleeping Beauty party, so I hung it from the walls to the chandelier. I don’t know what it is about crepe paper that makes a party–my kids think we can’t celebrate without something hanging from the ceilings. The crepe paper was also great to make a long runner down the tables–it helped to unite the two tables I had with two different table cloths.

I used the china, crystal, and silver I inherited from my grandmother, which is one of the reasons I wanted to host a tea party at all. I rarely get a chance to use my nice dishes and silverware anymore!

From the chandelier, I had three butterflies hanging from ribbon, bought from Dollar Tree:

For the backs of the chairs, I tied on tissue paper butterflies that Little E and I made together. We started by making tissue paper flowers, but found that butterflies were cute, easier to make, and used less paper. I made a tutorial here if you want to do it yourself. It was really easy!

This was a great excuse to buy fresh roses, so of course, I did, trying to make bouquets small enough for guests to be able to see over while enjoying their tea.

For food, I planned to have guests bring a tea dainty to share, but I went overboard with all the fun items I thought we just had to have, so I had to text them last minute and tell them they didn’t have to bring anything. A few did, though, anyway, so we also had delicious bundtlets from Nothing Bundt Cakes (so good) and more chocolate covered strawberries. I couldn’t find room on the table for all the food, so I had to line it up in the kitchen:

We had cubed cheese with toothpicks, fresh fruit, pink meringues piped out the night before:

Russian tea cakes with mini chocolate chips:

These cute little peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into hearts, an idea I found in Parents magazine a while back:

Chocolate covered strawberries, of course. That was a must for Little E:

and an individual chocolate mousse serving by each plate:

I love putting berries in the water glasses for a nice touch:

Of course, we had tea with sugar cubes and cream. The Celestial Seasonings blueberry tea that we chose was popular.

Each guest was able to take home the butterfly from the back of her chair and this little white bucket filled with dinner mints with a little foam bird perched on top. The birds were quite a hit with the young girls! I bought the birds and buckets at Dollar Tree.

In the middle of the tea party, Little E thought I should read this cute tea party book she had. The girls enjoyed that, even if it was a bit below their grade level. One girl even asked me to read it again!

The girls had fun with each other all dressed up in their finery, even if they did show their sugar intake afterwards by running wild for a little while. For my part, I had a wonderful time in fellowship with their moms. We had so much fun, maybe I’ll do it again next year!

Click here for a free and simple tutorial for the tissue paper butterflies.