Little Girl Birthday Tea Party

My little girl turned six, so we threw her a tea party!  And we didn't break the bank doing it, either.

              For decorations, I hung a dollar store "Happy Birthday" banner across the window and hung ribbons and cardboard flower strings (which I made from yarn and flower shaped paper plates) vertically from the ceiling above the half-wall next to the table.  Then I draped a sheet and a ruffly valence I found at a thrift store for $2 over the half wall.   I wanted to create a cozy and frilly space that seemed set off from the rest of the house for the tea party.

The first hour we spent prettying ourselves up for the party. 

First, we made necklaces by stringing beads onto ribbons and tying knots every 5th bead or so.  Tying the knots proved to be a bit more difficult for the girls than I expected.  If they had been a year or two older, it probably would have worked better.  But the necklaces turned out pretty cute.  I gave them each a zip top bag with about 30 beads and one yard of ribbon in it.  The ribbon cost me about $3 dollars total and the beads were about $2.  So this was not an expensive craft.  But it turned out nicely.

Next we went to the headband station where each girl picked out a flower and a couple of jewels and pointed out where she wanted them.  Then the glue gun and I made it so.   I found a sprig of pink and white flowers and headbands (10 for a dollar--awesome!) at the dollar store.  I already had the jewels, but you can get packages of jewels for a couple of dollars at the craft store.  A couple of days before the party, I took the flowers off of the stems and glued two of them together to make slightly bigger looking flowers.  Then at the party, we glued the flower on the headband and put two or three jewels on the flower or on the headband itself to finish it off.  This was another inexpensive, but really cute craft.  You can see how it turned out on the final picture of this post.

Station three was the favorite station:  make-up!  The girls put eye-shadow and lip gloss on each other.  Then each girl got to take the lip gloss tube used on her mouth and go choose a favor basket to put it in.  The lip glosses and eye shadow only cost me about $7 total.

Now it was time to have our tea party.  I found little espresso cups and saucers at a yard sale which were the perfect size for their little hands.  We served cheese sandwiches, at the request of the birthday girl, and cucumber sandwiches along with lemonade and white grape juice (instead of actual tea).  

Then we served chocolate-vanilla cake with pink frosting.

This is what the guests took home with them:  A bag of sidewalk chalk, a flower bracelet, their lipgloss, the necklace and headband they made and a pinwheel (just because I think pinwheels are so fun) all in a white basket decorated with ribbons and bows and such.  I found these baskets at a yard sale for 10 cents each and spray painted them white.  Then I added ribbons and bows that I already had in my craft supplies to each basket.  Each basket was a little different and the girls thought that was fun.

The girls had a great time.  I spent less than $50 bucks on everything I used for the party.  And I sent the girls home with stuff they could actually use instead of those cheap plastic party favor toys and such that you get at the party store.

--Daydream Dolly