One lump or two?

So earlier this year I thought of having a family tea party for all of the girls in my family, young and old(er). The idea was to get all dressed up like a kid would for a fancy party and just have some fun. I was so excited about the idea when I first thought about it that I laid in bed, totally awake, thinking of ideas of things to do and how to make it fun. I had to get out of bed and write out some notes and do a few sketches before I could fall asleep.

I'm lucky to have wonderful women and delightful little neices on both side of my family, so now that I have time off of work, I like to put together days like this. The girls are at the right age to just be little girls and have fun before school and friends make them think their family is uncool. So I've been trying to get everyone's schedules coordinated this summer and it was very hard to do--well, it turned out that my grandparents were visiting this week from Florida, so we were able to schedule everyone. This was a double blessing because my Grandma Q has liver cancer and a few months ago was only given a few days to a few weeks to live, but she's here and from you can see in the pics that follow, smiling and enjoying herself. It's such a treasure to be able to make these memories with her and the rest of the family.

Also in the theme of "luck," I'm lucky that my family is a bunch of good sports, so they let me run wild on stuff like this. Here are the fruits of my labor:

Like I've said before, there are 3 elements to throwing a great party. First is decor... I made this canopy out of tulle, a hula hoop, some ribbon and some butterflies that were on wires. All leftovers from other events (So, FREE!)

Liz helped me out on the canopy and butterflies. I think it looks really cool.

This gave me an excuse to use a lot of my beloved party accessories. I used vintage sheets for the linens and tucked into the napkin is candy jewelry. The adults have a vintage handpainted mirror placecard and the little girls had felt flowers with their names on them. I used my vintage tea set that LexyLux gave to me, along with a lot of fun glassware.


We played Tea Party Bingo!


The girls decorated picture frames with stickers and I printed family photos that I put into the frames and handed out at the end of the party. Kirk bought me the time in order to do this by telling the kids a story with his puppet, Francois, but I don't have any pictures of that... I'll get some soon!

Like I've said before, the guest list is element #2 (well, technically it's the #1 thing, but I always like to show the decorations first because it "sets the stage" for the rest of it!


Ellie and Emily


The Olmstead crew, complete with Kirky as "Dash Dashington." Back row - Amanda, Jessica, me. Front row - Emily, Karen, and Malia.

My side of the family--Grandma O'Kate, me, Dao, Ellie, Grandma Q, The DolliMama, and Liz.

After lunch, everyone played dress up. Emily went tastefully vintage--I'm so jealous!

Malia, Ellie, and Emily enjoying being little girls...

Last but not least, the menu. We had blueberry scones with lemon glaze,

Petit fours with apple butter, raspberry, and passion fruit filling (they didn't turn out as lovely or as tasty as when I did them last time, but they were OK.


I also made chicken salad croissants, fruit salad, and we had iced tea, minted lemonade, and a selection of hot teas.

So that's it! Ta-Da!!