A Tea Party Fit For a Princess

 

Last weekend I threw my first ever little-kid party!! It's not that my children have never had a birthday party... Except for the year Tobes was born (just 2 days after Princess's birthday) they have had some pretty epic parties (including one at the zoo last year for Princess). But they've all been family barbeques. All of Princess's friends are the kids of my friends still, and so we set up the backyard for a big celebration with all our friends!

This year was a little different. This year Princess desperately wanted a tea party with some of her best girl friends (and a few little brothers too). So the first weekend in June we threw our annual barbeque (with a guest list of over 30 people) for Princess and Tobes, and then we planned the tea party 2 weeks later.

Barbeques are easy. Barbeques involve a lot of families, a lot of visiting, a TON of food, and an assortment of toys for the kids to occupy themselves with. We keep it pretty low-key usually and everyone has a pretty good time :)

Growing up I had epic birthday parties. Snow days (with snowflakes hanging from the ceiling and flavored hot chocolate), pirate themes (complete with treasure hunts around the house and a HUGE map my dad painstakingly drew for me), puppy themes, and more! I'm excited as the kids get older for them to be able to choose themes and have favorite things to help them celebrate!


Princess's tea party was going to be awesome! She chose the guest list, which was kept considerably smaller, and the girls came over for a few hours. I needed games, I needed activities, and I needed a plan!

First things first: the theme! It was pretty easy - a Fairy-Princess Tea Party. I went on Pinterest and scoured the site for ideas on decor, food, and activities. I handmade tissue paper pompoms, found teacups at the secondhand store, and my husband and I tried out recipes for the food. I also coaxed a friend into making fantastic sugar cookies for the event. I got art supplies, and found a list of games to play with the parachute my kids had received from another awesome friend for the birthdays (the theme here: I have awesome friends!)

And here's the result!

Flower scones (there was a theme...)

Prepping sandwhiches

Pinterest told me to make a chalkboard, so I did. I also made egg-carton flowers for the lights on the trellis. They were all over and looked like a vine :)

Tissue paper pom poms - they were all throughout the trees!

And more :)

Making crowns. The activities were decorating crowns (that I cricutted out myself), and then decorating foam butterflies that went onto dowels that my husband cut. The dowels had eye hooks with ribbon and voila - fairy wands!! I need to take a picture of the finished product.

The spread.

From left to right: butter, whipped Devonshire cream, raspberry butter, and jam. The whipped cream and the raspberry butter were made by me.

Outer ring alternated peanut butter and jam, and ham and cheese. The inner circle were cucumber and cream cheese.

The scones and the sugar cookies made by a friend. Not the best shot, but they were shoes, tiaras, castles, and hearts!

From her website! These were the pictures of the actual cookies (custom-made)

Parachute Tobes!!

Parachute Princess! (without her glasses... and I hate that she looks weird to me now without them!)

Playing games.