Garden Tea Party

Garden Tea Party!

Start with a great tea set!
This one was an amazing find at T.J. Max.  Keep it after the party
and use it for many years to come!

Flower Garden Cupcakes!  Red Velvet with cream cheese frost,
from Samantha's Sweets.

Garden Vegetable Cupcakes!  -with fondant veggies and butter cream icing
By Samantha's Sweets

Table scape with garden tea party items!

Table scape!

Just some of the decoration elements.  If you look around the table scape, you will see there where matching tissue boxes, coasters, name tags, favors and treat bags.



Garden Cupcakes!  -with edible dirt, chocolate butter cream and fondant veggies. 
The shovels are pretzel sticks with gum paste and edible silver paint.  The seeds are
candy coated sunflower seeds, which are also great for favors.  I placed them in
little bowls around the party and cake table.



Gotta have a Tea Party Cake!

Set the Scene...
For any tea party, the table is the most important area of focus.  Have a beautiful, cloth table covering.  Have a eye catching center piece.  This could simply be your tea set before use.  I used a pop corn container that I found at discount store.  It had the perfect colors and decorations to match the theme, and also the kids loved the pop corn as part of the celebration.  Have the table set with everything needed for the tea and treats.  Assign seating by using name tags.  The birthday girl helped me make them and planned where all her friends would sit. 
We adorned the walls with flowers, a banner with tea party stickers and a large picture of a garden that the birthday girl made herself.

Let the kids be part of the decorating!  It makes the party extra special!

Garden Tea Party Games:  The tea itself is the main activity for the party.  Take the tea around on a tray and have each guest pick which tea they will drink.  I used all decaf teas of a wide variety.  Research tea how-to information first!  I'm embarrassed to say, but I actually had the tea water too hot and the cream curdled.  Not cool!  But the party went on to be great.  Everyone makes mistakes when party planning, just learn from them.  : )

   
The focus on this particular party, at the request of my little girl, was vegetables. 

Veggie Toss:  Get realistic veggies from a craft store.  Have a large wooden harvest basket.  Let the kids simply take turns tossing the veggies in the basket.  Award small prizes for how many they get in.

Veggie Coloring:  Printable coloring sheets online are the best!  We found cute vegetable ones and Veggie Tales also. 

Veggie Tales Movie:  Veggie Tales movies are uplifted and great for kids. 

Decorations:

*Tea set and tea cups--most important

*Garden veggies in a basket.

*Flowers on the walls.

*Seed packets on the table.

*Greenery around the cupcake stands.

Table Scape:

*Pictures above.  Again, start the decorating adventure with the perfect tea set.

Favors & Treat Bags:

*Grow your own flowers, wrapped in cellophane with a garden tag.

*Seed packets.

*Carrot bubble sets.  (Because this party was in April, I was able to get Easter decorations, etc., with spring like elements and carrots.)

     Bags...

*I used carrot shaped treat bags filled with seed packets, garden pencils and erasers, garden stickers and fruity lollipops.

Cake:

-Garden cupcakes with fondant veggies and flowers

-Tea party table cake

Sweet Treats Table

The dining room table was completed with sweet elements like...

   *Candy coated sunflower seeds

   *Fruity lollipops

   *Garden cupcakes
   *Colorful Lemon-Cooler Cookies  -on recipe page
   *Edible dirt with gummy-worms -on recipe page