Little Miss Spider Tea 3yr - Butterfly Cookies

Little Miss Spider Tea Party (on a budget).  For my daughter's 3rd birthday, she wanted a tea party. Specifically, Little Miss Spider's tea party in pink and yellow.  Our event was to be small, low key and low budget so here's what we did.  Note that nearly ALL of the preparations were done with the help of my daughter.  

Invitations:  printed from our computer.  A picture of Little Miss Spider on the front and titled:  Little Miss (child's name) Tea Party.  I wrote a poem on the inside to mimic the book: 

Decorations:  Ladybugs, bumblebees and caterpillars all made from egg cartons painted by my daughter.  We used black pompoms for heads, added pipe cleaner antenna and googly eyes.  Pipe cleaner legs were added for the caterpillars.  We also made butterflies from coffee filters and clothes pins.  Have the child use markers to decorate dry coffee filters (more color is better). Spritz with water for colors to run.

When dry, scrunch between a clothes pin. You can paint the clothes pin, add eyes and antenna as you please. We strung the butterflies on fishing line above the table (so it looked like they were flying) and scattered the bugs about the table. 

For flowers, we made "mexican tissue paper" flowers in pink, yellow and orange.  For a "vase", I painted a coffee can yellow, glued pink ribbons around it, added 3 butterflies and put in floral foam.  Stuck the flowers in it so they were overflowing.  I took a second coffee can, painted it yellow, glued floral ribbon around the edges, added a large bow and butterfly. Filled with floral foam and topped with spanish moss.

Into this vase, I stuck lollipops:  jellied butterflies painted beautifully and chocolate dragonflies. All tied with pink and yellow ribbon. Lying on the moss were ladybug chocolates (chocolates wrapped in foil printed like ladybugs).  I also sprinkled these around the table.  The tablecloth was pink and yellow floral with pictures of bees, butterflies and ladybugs. Plates and napkins were also pink. 

Favors: We made ladybug trinket boxes. Oval shaped paper mache boxes painted red with black dots.  Added a large pompom for a head, googly eyes and antenna.  We also made activity books.  Construction paper cover with a guest name, foam butterflies, dragonflies and ladybugs glued on. 

Inside pages were coloring pages or activity worksheets (age appropriate) - all bug themed - downloaded from the internet.  All three-hole punched and tied together with pink ribbons.  I put in a few sheets of stickers (bugs of course) and small box of crayons. These were used as place settings as well as favors. 

Food - since in the book, Miss Spider has tea cakes, WE had tea cakes. We had lemon cupcakes frosted in either pink or yellow frosting.  I used the opposite color to pipe on a spider web (looks just like the ones in the book).  We made butterfly sugar cookies - decorated with icing and grasshopper brownies.  We had tea (for adults) and beetle juice (ginger ale mixed with frozen juice concentrate) for children. 

Activity - when this group of girls is at our home, they just want to "dress up". What better venue than a tea party? So in the ladybug trinket boxes, I placed butterfly rings, necklaces and bracelets. I gave them each pink tiaras and then let them loose with the dress up box. They occupied themselves happily while the adults had tea and chatted!  Those who were done with dress-up had their activity book to work with.  Music - background music was all bug related and by different artists:  Ladybug Picnic, Buzz Buzz, Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee, etc…