March 9th, 2011 |

Real Parties: Time for Tea

I’m very excited to share today’s real party with you……it’s sweet and girly and oh, so classic. With a beautiful attention to detail, this tea party is sure to inspire you! Shared with us by Andrea Edgar, you may remember the fabulous camp out party she threw for her son, Sawyer a while back. I always get excited when one of Andrea’s parties show up in my inbox. She has an incredible sense of style and you can see the love she puts into each party. Here are a few details, as told by Andrea:

A tea party is a tradition in our family when our girls turn 5. While this party theme is quite popular, I had a lot of fun with it as I staged it in our daughter’s bedroom! It was the perfect pastel backdrop and made everything extra ‘girly’. The invitations were definitely an inspiration for me – vintage but not too sophisticated. This was a birthday for a five year old, after all! I embellished them with glitter. They are from http://www.etsy.com/shop/LoraleeLewis; the cake labels for the envelopes are from http://www.etsy.com/shop/lovecreationgal.

I found the vintage tins at Homesense (Canada’s Home Goods) - they remind me of hat boxes! Inside was a vintage cut glass tea cup filled with candy rockets, a felt tea bag, and an embellished hair clip (sewn by me! see this tutorial), and some candy rockets. The guests also took home a pearl necklace.

I used 5 fabrics, a pink solid, cream with blue polka dot, a blue polka dot organza, and two florals from tablecloths I found at Homesense that reminded me of Cath Kidston prints. I promptly cut them up to make 3 table runners with ruffled edges, a bunting with pom-pom trim, a photobooth backdrop and handmade flowers. I sewed flowers of three different styles and of multiple sizes to adorn the chandelier, as well as to form a ‘bouquet’ in the teapot for the centerpiece. I used some of my grandmother’s brooches to serve as the center of select flowers. I also sewed crepe paper streamers to resemble ruffled fabric and strung it from the ceiling. I made pom poms using pink and white tulle instead of the usual tissue paper and hung 5 of them at varying heights around the chandelier. If felt like a bower thanks to the sloped ceilings in the room. The table was set with my mismatched china, doily ‘placemats’, and pearl necklace ‘napkin rings’. I ordered rose moulded sugars from LeChic Bakery Boutique. The guests wore my oldest daughter’s collection of vintage hats.

For tea, everything was homemade: cranberry scones with devonshire cream and raspberry preserves, egg salad and heart-shaped pb & j sandwiches, carrots and snap peas, oreo truffles, jam thumbprint cookies, lemon bars, white chocolate-dipped strawberries, and vanilla cupcakes with raspberry buttercream. The girls also drank LOTS of tea (actually, mostly milk with a little tea:) The tiered tray was topped with the letter ‘M’ for our birthday girl, Meredith.

The guests were asked to bring their favorite doll or teddy bear. We took photos, colored, made paper fans, played pass the present (unwrapping one layer at a time) and ‘Find Your Dolly’. The girls had so much fun being little ladies – they really got into their roles! This theme really reflected the transition of my preschooler maturing into being a little girl, too.

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Between her time spent working in the fashion industry and her love for party planning, Kelly is constantly in search of that hot new idea! She founded The Party Dress ~ Inspirations from the Well-Heeled Hostess in 2009 while in desperate search for a creative outlet, which was expanded into a quarterly magazine in 2011.

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