An Invitation to Tea

Sunday afternoon marked Miss Lady’s third annual tea party.  It was a wild success.  We’ll try and let the pictures do the talking…  If you have questions, make sure you leave them in the comments! (Hover over the pictures for more information.)

Start your party off right with a fancy invitation to tea.  (Just be sure to spell everything correctly 🙂 )

Pick a theme!  Ours: strawberries.  It was great, though maybe throw some variety in there too 😉

Prepare your location.

A hail storm the week prior left our yard looking like the beginning of Autumn…all of these leaves needed to be raked.

I’e had my eye on a Victorian style Gingerbread Swing for a long time, and I knew it would be the perfect addition to the tea party area. It would also provide an extra swing for the little girls to play on during the party.

To make the back of the swing, I took a piece of paper and free-hand drew half of the back design. Trace half, flip it over, draw the other half. I used the band saw and scroll saw to cut out the inner portions.

Gluing the back onto the gingerbread swing.

Day of the Party: The new swing and an a parasol I bought when I went to Disney World back in High School.

If you are able, prepare as much of the food for your luncheon in advance.  For us, that meant making ice cream and juicing strawberries earlier in the week.

Homemade strawberry banana ice cream….I was told it tasted like yogurt 🙂

Homemade chocolate ice cream, prior to freezing. We filled little 4 oz. jelly jars…no ice cream maker.

Chocolate ice cream, ready for the freezer.

Aren’t these beautiful? They were tasty too!

Juicing strawberries to make juice for sweet tea and lemonade.

The strawberries arrived courtesy of a friend on Monday morning. It was perfect for our strawberry feast, so I made the juice and froze strawberries for Sunday.

Think about your presentation.  What food will be served, what dishes will you need?  How many tables and chairs?  What about linens and other things?  If you do not have what you need, can you make it???

I have been wanting to make a drink cart for the past few years, and the legs of our old grill seemed to be a good start to the frame of a tea cart.

We had wheels from an old red rider wagon that I used to add “new” wheels to the cart.

I was able to attach the wheels to the cart after a little finagling.

To build the top of the cart, I took a piece of an old table top I found in the top of the granary, cut it to size, and drilled some holes part way through the wood using a forstner bit.

The holes from the forstner bit fit over some little pegs that stuck up out of the frame of the stand.

To make the cart more functional, I made the top of the cart into a box. Using the table saw, I ripped a 2×4 to make slats to make 2 more shelves on the cart.

Shelves installed, the cart just needed a little paint.

I found a basket and an old aluminum cooler that I gave a second life to by spray painting. The cooler was painted “ocean mist”, and the basket was an antique white.

Miss Lady’s Tea. You can see the completed cart in the background, and the painted basket is sitting on the bottom shelf.

There is only so much preparing you an do in advance, but make sure that there will be flowers.

Our neighbor is starting a flower farm, and I was her first ordering customer…two bouquets for a fancy tea party. I think she did an amazing job!

Beautiful flowers for a beautiful day.

Miss Lady helped me to set out our flower arrangements that we purchased from our neighbor friend who is starting a flower farm.

On the day of the party, there will be lots of set up.  Pray for clear skies and nice weather!  Your linens do not need to match, nor do your chairs.  The only requirement is to think fancy.  And spend plenty of time with the prettiest hostess in the world 🙂

Miss Lady sits at the head of the tea table with her special flower cup.

One of the tea tables set.

Two tables for tea. I think there were a total of 19 people at tea…we were short 1 chair, but that little one sat on her momma’s lap.

Finish preparing the food and beverages before guests arrive.

Make sure your clothes are pretty, clean, and fancy!

There still may be set up to complete as your guests arrive, but if you are blessed like us, you may even have guests who help.

Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one with a camera. Scott’s godmother came to tea, and she took a few pictures as well. Here I am contemplating where to place the last of the tea pots.

Grandma wore a fun hat and brought delicious strawberry cream cheese sandwiches to the party. This was the only picture I have of the food table with food on it, and it wasn’t even fully set up. Oh well…next year!

I did not take a picture of the cart after it was completed, but you can see it here in the background. Miss Lady was waiting patiently for lunch to begin.

Guests mingling under the trees before tea.

Sitting down to enjoy lunch with your guests.

Miss Lady and her table of fancy ladies.

This sweet little lady was enjoying some “tea.” She even had her little pinkies up while she was drinking out of the cup!

When the eating is complete, playing or visiting is is a must!

Possibly my favorite outfit for tea <3

A fancy guest enjoying the new tree swing.

The swing most definitely will only fit one adult, but we found out that two young tea guests could fit comfortably, side by side.

These two are all silly giggles every time they get together. This time they got to have a real tea party with one another instead of just pretending.

I was taking pictures of Miss Lady and her guests when I caught this sight out of the corner of my eye.

When your guests have all left, and it’s time to clean up, remember that it is still okay to have fun!

E was not home for the tea party, but he did participate in clean up!

We had to go back outside after clean up to get a picture of Miss Lady on the new swing.

Goofy big brother Peanut came out to “help” take pictures.

He really did take a few pictures though. I had to test the swing out as well. It’s not as comfortable for an adult to sit on, but it’s perfect for little ones. If you tilt the seat back just a little, it holds a grown up much better.

We aren’t the “selfie” type of people, but sometimes you have to!

Projects:

• Miss Lady’s dress (day of the party…yeah, don’t do that to yourself!)
• Gingerbread Swing
• Drink Cart
• Painted Basket
• Painted Cooler

Menu:

• Strawberry Lemonade (1 cup strawberry  juice to 2 cans lemonade concentrate (mixed as directed) plus 1-2 extra cans of water)
• Strawberry Sweet Tea
• Strawberry Sun Tea (green tea bags in cold water…1 tea bag:1 cup water.   Cut and add several strawberries (crushing first releases sugars and flavors) and then let it sit in the sun about 2.5 hours
• Strawberry Lemonade Punch
• Strawberry Chicken Salad
• Finger Sandwiches (Strawberry Cream Cheese, Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam, Turkey, Cucumber )
• Old-Fashioned Southern Tea Cakes
• Strawberry Pie  (My pie looked nothing like the one in the picture, but it was still good.)
• White Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Wafers
• Dove Chocolates
• Strawberry Fudge
• Strawberry Banana Ice Cream and Chocolate Ice Cream (Improvisations on the recipes from Sally Fallon’s cookbook…ask if you have questions on what I did!)

The jelly jars can be found here, and the reusable covers here.

We also had water out, and hot water for traditional tea (though I don’t think anybody drank any of that this year).  We did drink the sweet tea and the sun tea though!  Yes, we are still cutting back on our sugar intake.  We have gotten more specific in the rules for our family and kids, and we’ve designated days of the year where we will allow sugar consumption for ourselves and the kids.  (Again, if you have more questions, let us know!)

The linens and dishes have been acquired over the past few years, mostly from thrift stores, with a few people passing tea pots and cups onto us.  Yes, I was crazy and made Miss Lady’s dress the day of the tea party, but it was a very basic dress that took about an hour of speed sewing and one little girl serving as a model, and a plan that was in my head for weeks.  It almost didn’t happen, but we had just enough time. The swing and cart were completed in the last week, the bulk of the work being done in a few hours when somebody volunteered to help with the kids (thank you!).  The basket and cooler were painted at the same time I was working on the builds.

Saturday consisted of making tea cookies, pulling out all linens and dishes, setting up tables and chairs (thanks Grandma!), making sweet tea and strawberry lemonade, hanging a tree swing, and going to a wedding.  Sunday morning was flower delivery, church, make a pie, set up for the party, make whipped cream, sandwiches, and a dress, and get fancy.  By 1 p.m. guests were arriving.  The little ladies decided nail polish and lipstick were a must, and spent plenty of time playing hide and seek, swinging, chatting, and picking out fancy jewelry.

Cleanup when quickly thanks to many extra helping hands, and Scott and the kids all helped get the last of it into the house.

We hope you enjoyed visiting our tea party!  Please let us know if you would like more information about any of our projects, recipes, or any other details from the party!  What was your favorite part?

Love~Miss Lady and Danielle

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