May. 19, 2007
May 2007 Sweet Monday -- Tea Party Themes

Tea Party Themes

(with ideas from “Let’s Have a Tea Party” by Emilie Barnes)

Garden Tea Party:

·      Invitations:  Use flowered or garden themed invitations, or make your own.  Be sure to let guest know it’s an outdoor celebration.

·      Decorations: Use an outdoor patio or other table, or do an old-fashioned picnic with a tablecloth on the ground.  For centerpiece, use a water can or flower pot and fill with flowers from your garden.  If using a patio table with an umbrella, decorate its edges and pole with ivy/garland.

·      Food: Garden Patch Cupcakes with chocolate frosting, decorated with crushed chocolate cookies for dirt; cut drinking straw into 2-3” pieces and stand one in the middle of each cupcake.  Then place a real or artificial flower, stem down, into each straw.  Use mint leaves to create “leaves” of flower and hide straw.  BugBites are round cookies (sugar or gingersnaps) for the bug bodies, decorated with icing, red hots or mini-M&M’s, along with licorice or fruit-flavored candy strings for legs, antennae, etc . To made Flower Power, cut petals and around center out of bread.  Add cream cheese to petals and add a top.  Put center in middle of serving plate, adding cream cheese and raisins.  Arrange “petals” around center.  Keebler has also come out with new graham crackers called BugBites.

Musical Tea Party:

·      Invitations:  Perhaps have this theme to celebrate a composer’s birthday, a piano recital, or the symphony coming to town.  Look on the internet for the score with a music sheet/staff as your invitation or see if you can find some at your local store.

·      Decorations: If you have an instrument, use that as part of your centerpiece.  For placemats, use plain white paper placemats and draw a large musical staff (5 horizontal and parallel lines) on each.  Then set each guest’s name to music.

·      Food: Piano Key Sandwiches are made from pumpernickel & white bread.  Cut the crusts from the white bread and cut into 4 pieces.  Spread with cream cheese.  Then cut pumpernickel into 3-4 pieces and spread with cream cheese.  Arrange on tray so the look like black & white keys on a piano.  Make Flute Cookies from long, type-shaped cookies decorated with icing for the finger holes.

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The Anti-Tea Party:

I thought this one up to give the boys in our lives a fun way to get in on a tea party and not have them feel it’s too “girly.”  Have them dress up as Indians and read them the story of the Boston Tea Party.  They can even act it out by dumping instant tea into a wading pool filled with water and make boats out of newspaper to float in their very own “Boston Harbor.”  For the food, you could have Boston-type foods like a Boston Cream Pie, Boston Brown Bread, or even Boston Baked Beans!  And of course, since the colonies boycotted tea, they can drink another favorite drink, or use their ships to pretend they are smuggling tax-free tea to our shores.