Tea Party Preparations

Well, we had a bit of a panic this week when we looked at the calendar and realised there is only 2 weeks until the date we had planned to have the party. We haven’t sent out the invitations yet, and we haven’t really even decided who we are inviting. So I have been madly trying to get the invitations finished, the menu and cake sorted and the table layout vaguely planned. Here’s what we have so far:

The invitations (which now need to be changed because we have decided to change the date) are meant to look like the mad hatter’s hat.

This is a “test run” of the cake I will be making for the party. This is another one of those projects I love, Quick, Cheap & Easy. I used Shayna’s  idea of “dress-up cakes without the stress”, but with things that would appeal to my daughter. She wanted a strawberry cake (it’s actually raspberry flavoured, but it’s pink so she’ll never know the difference) and she LOVES marshmallows. It took me a while to think of what I would use to go around the cake, because chocolate is not a good look with toddlers and it’s not pink, then one day it just came to me, pink wafer biscuits would be perfect! This was the easiest cake to “make”, I got a round unfilled sponge from the supermarket for a couple of dollars, made some raspberry flavoured pink icing, put icing in between the layers and all around the outside of the cake, stacked the biscuits around it, poured marshmallows on top and stuck some candles and ribbon on. The ribbon will be changed, the one in the photo is a bit boring, but I was just working with what I had, and it’s more for decoration than anything because the icing holds the biscuits in place pretty well.

  For the party favours I tried to make as much of them as possible, because I couldn’t really find anything in the stores that was affordable and practical. So for each child I made a set of shape (square, circle, triangle) bean bags, a mini crayon roll which holds 4 jumbo crayons and a little drawing book. Each child will also get a fun straw, a glow bracelet, a lollipop and a little bottle of bubbles. For the bags I just used a foam stamp I already had and stamped onto some coloured paper bags I already had with acrylic paint. So the total cost of all six party bags and favours was probably around $10, the only things I had to buy were the crayons, ribbon for the crayon rolls, glow bracelets, lollipops & straws, the rest was stuff I already had.

And this is what my dining table looks like this week. I got out all the cups, saucers, plates, jugs etc that I have been collecting for the last couple of months, to make sure I had enough and to decide what will be used for what. The little labels you can see sitting on the plates are the menu items, which will be: little jugs of milk, sugar dishes full of mini marshmallows (instead of sugar cubes), mini sandwiches: cucumber, jam, cheese, marmite; cake, biscuits (for dunking), mini scones with jam & cream, fruit: grapes, mandarins, melon, strawberries, blueberries; mini pikelets, mini pastries with cheese, tomato paste, pineapple and ham, mini spring rolls. The rest of the teapots and cups that will not be used for tea will be used for flower arrangements. I haven’t decided what to do with the bright coloured napkins yet, they are left over from our wedding so I thought we might be able to incorporate them somehow.

Now we just have to think about decorations. I don’t want to have to do too much, but I do want it to look mad hatterish and also tea partyish, and it has to be three year old friendly and fun. If you have any ideas, or if you have done something similar in the past, I would love you to share!