The Tea Party

About a month before Anna's Birthday I asked her what she wanted to do for her Party. I googled parties for little girls and came up with a few fun ideas but the winner choice was the Tea Party. The ideas started flowing and we started to get pretty excited!

The invitation was cut on the cricut using some paper I had on hand. I found a little poem on line and just inserted our own details.

The night we were to deliver the invites my kids were having an especially hard time. Whinny and tired. I decided to have them make some tiny cupcakes that we would deliver with the invitations. The theme for food was tiny finger food so it worked out well. As a side note my kids loved it. The crying stopped and Q fell asleep mid-delivery which always makes me happy!

Last year was a little bit too chaotic for me. The kids were only 3 years old and I had planned way to many crazy things that only raised my anxiety level. So this year I tried to fix that problem. We only invited 5 little girls and the activities I planned were no mess. The invitation asked for the girls to come in their "Party Dress". They all came in their fanciest outfit...so cute!

Waiting for the guests to arrive!

When all the girls arrived I had them choose a carpet square and we read some stories. Fancy Nancy is always a hit as is Pinkalicious. It was a nice calm way to start the party.

After the stories, we talked about Tea Parties. We talked about how you need to get all dressed up and fancy. After I got them sufficiently excited for the tea party, I told them we needed to get ready for the party. I divided them into 3 groups: Hair, Nails, and Makeup.

My mom was in charge of the make up station. I had a little basket set up with mascara, eyeshadow, blush and lipstick. There was a great big mirror next to the girls so they could watch the transformation! They were in Heaven!

Anna's "After" Photo

The 2nd Station: Nails

Ally was sweet enough to come down to help with the party. The girls loved her and she was so cute and patient with them. When the girls left her station, I asked to see their nails and they had every little nail painted a different color. Patience. But they LOVED it!

Final Station: Hair

Amy (who has always had a natural talent for doing hair) made these little girls feel like princesses. They climbed up in to the big chair and had their hair curled and combed. Some had up-do's and some had just plain curls. They were all so cute.

I thought it would be fun for them to all have matching little clips. So I made these little clips using some fabric that I had and plucked a feather from the boas they were given. They were really easy to make and turned out so cute!

The most wonderful thing about the stations; it was so calm! The little girls were so quiet as the big girls took care of them. They just quietly sat as they were treated like little queens. It was so cute to watch!

After the girls were all "done up" they came to me to be accessorized! I had a little bag for each of them. In it contained a boa, a pair of white gloves (both found at the dollar store), and a beaded necklace (found at party land).

Once they all had their accessories we headed outside for a little group photo.

After the pictures I took them over to the "Tea Room". This was the where I had the most fun planning. The little banner was made on the cricut using card stock.

I cut two layers of the letter and mod podged glitter onto the smaller layer. Glitter is not my favorite. It is a crazy mess however it does turn out cute.

The Table

I found the cutest tea set at IKEA. Each girl had a dinner plate, salad plate, tea cup, and saucer. I made little place mats using the cricut. Because I plan on doing this party again in the future, I had the place mats laminated at the local copy store. I made little name tags using the same butterfly theme. At Anna's chair there sat a little bell. I gave her special permission to ring the bell if she needed anything. At this point in the party I felt like Cinderella (not in the princess way). It was totally worth it to listen to the giggle of power she had just been granted!

Hanging from the umbrella are tissue paper flowers. These turned out so cute. I bought a variety pack of tissue paper for $4 at walmart and used half of it to make all of these flowers. So easy to make.

The Food:

I actually forgot to take pictures of the food but you can see the girls enjoying it. I bought a little cookie cutter off of amazon. I used this to make all of the food. We had Pineapple topped with raspberries. Watermelon topped with blueberries. Two types of sandwiches: PB&J, and Turkey & Cheese. For dessert I made tiny cheese cakes (out of the box- so easy) and tiny Chocolate chip cookies. One of the things Anna loved helping me with were the toothpicks. In the Fancy Nancy book it gives the idea of using toothpicks with all of the food. So I cut out little butterflies off of the cricut and glue gunned them to the tooth picks. Anna was so excited about this part.

At IKEA they sell these little Ice Cube Trays for $1.99. We had the star one so the kids and I started making ice cubes the day before. The girls loved them. The bell was mostly rung in need of more ice cubes and lemonade.

I loved this picture. In the Fancy Nancy book she teaches you have to have your pinky up when you sip your drink. Anna took this very seriously. I over heard the girls talking about how hard it was to do this and it made their fingers sore. So funny. I told them they didn't have to do it!

After the girls had finished eating we played two games.

Pass the hot tea pot and Kiss the poodle.

I found a picture online of a tea pot and printed it out. I traced it onto some left over felt I had, cut out two sides, sewed them together and filled it with rice. The perfect custom bean bag. Girls loved it.

For the Poodle game, the idea is pin the tail on the donkey. I blind folded the girls and put a lot of bright fuschia lipstick on them. The walked forward and tried to kiss the poodle. They thought that was pretty fun.

After presents were opened, Anna gave all her friends the party favors. On the cricut I had a little purse cut out. I enlarged the size and used it as a pattern to make this little purse. I lined it with pellon and added a little velcro so it would open and close. We found little make up lipsticks and eyeshadow for $1 at Party Land. They turned out pretty cute.

Over all I think this party was a huge success. The girls had a lot of fun. Almost as much fun as I had preparing for it!:) It was actually very inexpensive to do because I used a lot of materials I already had. I will definitely repeat this one for my next little girl!