Terrific Tea Party -6yr- Fairy Bread Sandwiches

After finding some great ideas from this site, I decided that I wanted to hold a tea party for my daughter's sixth birthday. 

The Invitations: I found a very sweet clip-art image of a teacup and saucer, enlarged it and printed out a number of copies. I cut out correlating pink backs and wrote an invitation message on a sheet of white paper inviting guests to come and drink tea and to wear their best tea party attire. I then cut out the text in a steam" shape. I glued the steam into the cup complete with a piece of ribbon which had a cardboard tag attached - this was to represent a teabag. These were very pretty invites and looked very original. 

The Decorations: I searched for clip-art images of teacups teapots and lots of different cakes and cupcakes in bright colours and printed out around 60. I cut each of these out and blu-tacked some of them to the walls of my dining room. I attached curling ribbon to the remainder and suspended them over the dining room table. 

The table was decorated with lace-look plastic tablecloths with each place setting having a tiny cup and saucer in orange blue and yellow stripes sitting on a paper doily complete with decoratively folded napkin (the china cost me $2.50 each on sale).I bought a 3 metres of orange tulle and made a bow to decorate the back of each chair and made a drape to go over the curtain rod with the remainder. I purchased a number of cheap tiered sweet servers and also used a tiered cake server in blue and white. I borrowed some silver sandwich servers from my mother and placed a plastic silver serving tongs on each. I had bought a teapot which matched the teacups and borrowed another plain blue one so there was a strong theme of blue orange and white. The dining room looked amazing and the guests were in awe when they arrived! 

The menu (party snacks): I wanted to serve petite food so that the girls could choose from a number of options without getting too full. As it was a tea party I decided to serve only cakes and sandwiches (so no chips lollies etc). I prepared the following:

1. miniature strawberry cheesecakes

2. melting moments with strawberry filling

3. miniature cupcakes with butter icing

4. fairy bread sandwiches (sandwich triangles which contained butter and a sprinkling of sugar sprinkles with one triangle edge them dipped in the sprinkles - very sugary but the kids liked them!)

5. Chicken sandwiches made with mayo pecans cranberries apples lettuce and curry powder - these tasted fabulous but were more for the parents than the kids).

6. I filled one teapot with lemonade and the other with an iced tea  

The cake: I decided to be clever and try and make an ice cream cake. I made a vanilla sponge base and smoothed softened vanilla ice cream over the top. I re-froze this and when set covered it with pink buttercream frosting. I added little sugar fairies around the top. 

Activities: I decided to have a number of tables set up with activities in my lounge room. I wanted the kids to stay indoors as my yard is very sandy and it had been raining for weeks. I conscripted some family members to "Man" each table to help the girls with each activity. 

Table 1 Decorate a sugar cookie: I bought a number of cookie cutters in a tea party theme (ie a teapot a cup and just for fun a butterfly). I cooked a large batch of plain sugar cookies and bought coloured icing tubes various cachous coloured sprinkles and coloured sugars. The girls decorated these with great delight. 

Table 2 Decorate a paper fan: I bought paper fans glitter glues sequins coloured feathers and strips of ribbon from craft and discount stores and the girls decorated one each. 

Table 3 Face painting: I bought a face painting kit online and my son's girlfriend painted butterflies etc on faces. It was a crash course but the girls were thrilled with their faces! 

Table 4 Make a paper flower: I read up on paper flower making on the net and bought different coloured tissue papers and green chenille pipe cleaners. Each girl was instructed how to make a flower and the finished product was put in an orange vase on the party table. 

Games: We really only had one game as the activities took up quite a bit of time. We placed the ever popular "pass the parcel". I n keeping with the tea party theme I used cupcake printed paper for each layer. The prizes were a chocolate frog and a small craft activity for the winner.  Costumes: My daughter chose to wear a dress up "princess dress" but the guests wore their finest and prettiest party dresses. When seated at the party table they were each given a plastic tiara to wear. 

Favors: I was really pleased to find a teeny miniature "Beauty and the Beast" tea set which formed the major party favor for each guest. I bought orange paper bags placed the tea set a lollipop and some small sweets inside and then stapled it closed. As in the invitation I added a ribbon and a tag to emulate a tea bag. The girls also took home their tiara the paper flower they made their decorated cookies and their decorated paper fan.  We only had six invited guests (though 8 had been asked so Sophie's brothers attended as guests). All parents stayed and everyone commented how much trouble I had gone to how incredible it all looked etc. Whilst this looked spectacular much of the cost was  minimal ie the cut outs were the cost of the paper and ink the doilies table cloths tongs etc were from discount stores. The main expense was for the activities materials the miniature tea set favors and the place settings. "