We had an amazing time at our Mother Daughter Valentine’s Day Tea Party on the weekend. Yesterday I shared the decor and craft and some of the food here. Today, it’s time for dessert!

I created this fun pink and red dessert table on the dinning room buffet.

This is the first time I went to the trouble of creating a backdrop for the dessert table. It was inexpensive and definitely adds a whole lot of fancy to the occasion.

I used a combination of pink, white and red streamers, and hung them from a ribbon. I love how it turned out. I also made a “Happy Valentine’s Day” banner from the Happy Heart free Valentine’s Day pintables I found at Catch My Party. They are so cute.

The little girls were adorable about the dessert table, plotting their dessert choices while the moms finished up their sandwiches.

For dessert there was some chocolate chip shortbread, since every tea party needs a little shortbread in my opinion. My girls and I also made some simple marshmallow pops, with valentine sprinkles. We anchored them in glasses of smarties -what I call a win-win.

I printed the pretty food labels from the Happy Heart free printable collection.

I also made some individual raspberry trifles -see my recipe here. I love how sweet they look in little juice glasses, with a silver tea spoon.

I also made some simple brownies and topped them with some heart shaped sprinkles -so easy, so yummy!

We also enjoyed these beautiful cupcakes from one of my favourite places -Cupcakes Canada.

They sent us their Valentine’s Day cupcakes. There was a half dozen box of 3 Vanilla (you know that’s my favourite right?) and 3 chocolate.

They looked so pretty with hearts, pink butter cream, silver balls and glitter in their pink bakery box! Did you know there was glitter for cupcakes?

Someone ready to dig into her sweets.

They were a huge hit with the little girls -and the big girls. Imagine ordering these for your child’s class -can you say super Mom!

We also had their special Valentine’s Day dozen. These are a great variety pack that include 2 Chocolate Raspberry, 2 Strawberries and Cream, 2 Double Dutch Chocolate, and 2 Red Velvet -all dressed up for Valentine’s Day. Wouldn’t these be lovely for your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day?

They were so beautiful, fresh and delicious. Have a look at their website for all the details, pricing and menu. Thanks Cupcakes Canada they were delicious!

I wanted to make a little take-home favour for the girls to remember our tea party, so I sewed each little girl a set of sweet felt cookies, and tea bag from felt, see the instructions here. I love how sweet they looked on their plates in these little dollar store take-out boxes. The thank you tag is also from the Happy Hearts free printable collection.

We had a really fun time together, and even the moms didn’t seem to want to leave. That night, after my happy little girls were tucked into bed, I went back downstairs for an extra little treat. A glittering vanilla cupcake and hot cup of tea just for me.

Life is a party and it just doesn’t get better than a Mother Daughter Valentine’s Day tea party!

This post is linked up at Tatertots and Jello, and Whipperberry.

Celebrating Valentine’s day is serious business around here, so this year my girls and I decided to have a mother daughter tea party for some of our friends. We had so much fun planning the menu and the activities.

When our guests first arrived we started out with a fun craft. I pre-cut a chain of paper dolls for each girl out of card stock, inspired by this one, and they used lots of fun pink and red papers and embellishments to decorate them.

My favourite detail was the cute skirts made out of cupcake wrappers.

After the craft it was time for lunch. I set the dinning room table for our lunch and used the buffet for a dessert table.

For the table I used a simple runner and some white orchids and heart shaped candles. I used my pink depression glass tea cups for everyone, and lots of pink serving pieces.

Of course every tea party demands some tea. I found this fun idea at Party Frosting to add hearts to the sugar cubes, with a simple edible food marker. Such a sweet little detail and so easy.

For the little girls I made pink hot chocolate.

I started with white hot chocolate mix (from the bulk barn) and added a little red food colouring. They loved it, especially served from a tea pot just like moms. I made some simple heart shaped marshmallows out of store bought marshmallows and a mini heart shaped cookie cutter (see more instructions here). One tip, this time I prepared them ahead of time, and dusted the cut, sticky parts with a little extra powdered sugar so they won’t stick together on the plate -it worked great.

The main attraction was the food. We had a variety of tea sandwiches to start with.

I made mini-BLT’s with mini Ciabatta buns, bacon, Boston bib lettuce, cocktail tomatoes, s and p, and a little Miracle Whip -what can I say, I love the tangie zip!

I used these sweet heart toothpick embellished with the Happy Heart free pintables drink flags I found at Catch My Party.

I also made egg salad, and served it on mini butter croissants, with a few sprigs of mixed greens.

There was also cucumber and cream cheese fingers. I made some sweet little jam sandwiches into hearts for the kids too.

All the little girls seem to love all the little food -just their size!

On the table there were also some homemade scones -raisin and plain. They were served with the traditional toppings of butter, jam and clotted cream! You know it’s a tea party when there’s clotted cream in the house!

We all had a great time at the tea party, tomorrow I’ll share with you the sweetest Valentine’s Day dessert table that we all enjoyed next.

Life is a party, and if you’re lucky it’s a Valentine’s Day Tea Party!

This post is linked up at Between Naps on the Porch, Tatertots and Jello, and Whipperberry.

The Food!

Tea parties call for little sandwiches, hot tea and homemade scones with clotted cream, and these were all included on our menu for our Women’s Ministry Royal Tea Party.

We started with an assortment of some of my favourite tea sandwiches. There were classic cucumber and cream cheese fingers.

We also had a vegetarian favourite of mine. It’s made with roasted red pepper, olive tapenade, fresh basil and goat’s cheese. And yes, it’s as good as it sounds!

We also served my famous chicken toast cups. You toast a buttered slice of bread in a muffin cup to make the cup and fill with a delicious chicken salad made from rotisserie chicken and top with onion sprouts.

We also had turkey with cranberry mayo on marble bread, and egg salad on a mini croissant. Along with the sandwiches there was a veggie tray.

The savoury food was delicious. For drinks we served a delicious lemonade punch, Perrier, and tea, lots and lots of tea!

The sweet table was so beautiful.

Since we were celebrating the recent royal wedding, I hung a netting canopy over the desert table and used cupcakes to make a wedding cake like display. I used simple bulk barn decorations and vanilla cake and icing.

The star attraction were the delicious home made scones -plain and blueberry, looking great on our home made cake stands -see how we made them in this post.

We served the scones with blueberry jam, raspberry jam, strawberry jam, butter and clotted cream. They were so, so good!

There was also shortbread, mini trifles, a fruit tray, and meringue cookies.

The food was all so delicious and everyone really enjoyed it.

We had one special guest who is suffering with some health issues, and has to be on a very restricted diet. I wanted my friend to feel included in the festivities too so I went to work trying to find some vegetarian, egg free, dairy free, gluten free, soy free, nut free options. I managed to find a few, so here are a few ideas if you’re ever in need. I wanted to make tea sandwiches for her so she’d feel as much a part of the party as possible. Through the internet, advice from a friend, and scanning the health food section I found some great options. I made her sunflower butter and banana sandwiches on rice bread, and also sunflower butter and blueberry jam on rice bread. I also found some rice wraps and made two kinds of wraps. One was homemade hummus, roasted veggies, and sprouts, and the other was homemade black bean dip with shredded carrots, julienne red pepper, and mixed salad greens.

I also wanted to offer her a few sweets. Along with the restrictions I listed above she also can’t have any caffeine or chocolate. I found a brand of gingersnaps that fit the bill, and then tried to find a recipe on line for something else. I came up with this recipe for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies with oatmeal and changed the peanut butter to sunflower butter, left out the chocolate chips, and changed the oil to olive oil (the only she can currently have). They actually came out looking like cookies!

After living on this diet for 6 months, and always having to bring all her own food to every function she attends, she was very grateful. And I was happy to do it for her, and even re-discovered how much I enjoy ministering love to friends and family with food. There is something to be said for good old fashioned hospitality, and when she hugged me in thanks, I got a little tear in my eye too, just grateful that you can actually show someone a little bit how much you love them by going out of your way to invite them to the party!

See Part I for all the fun Royal themed decor!

Pinkies were up, hats were on and the tea was flowing this weekend at our Women’s Ministry Tea Party. We decided on a Royal theme, since Prince William and Kate, officially the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be visiting Canada July. Guest were invited to wear a hat or a fascinator for fun. Here’s my friend Miya modeling her great hat!

I used a lot of the fun details from my Royal Wedding Party. We set the scene by stringing up Union Jack bunting from Brides.com, which also set our colour scheme of royal blue, red and white. Along with the flags, we added a layer of paper doily bunting. I just love how it turned out, and think it would be beautiful for an all white colour scheme as well. We set up one long table, and to match the paper doily bunting, used all different shapes and sizes of doilies to create a simple white on white table runner. I just love how it turned out.

We used these fun red and white polka dot napkins, and gave everyone their own “blue sapphire engagement ring”, which was a blue raspberry ring pop! We were able to barrow enough beautiful vintage teacups to complete our place setting.

We decorated the table with mini red rose bushes, potted in simple white ceramic pots, with a few pics from Design Editor stuck in for fun.

Other fun details on the table included some British inspired tea tins found at HomeSense, and some large jewel paperweights from my favourite store: the dollar store!

I also bought a commemorative magazine with lots of pictures of the royal wedding, and we cut some out and backed them with card stock to add to the table centre pieces and create another fun layer of detail.

The highlight of the party though was the food. Stop by tomorrow to see it all!

This party is linked up Between Naps on the Porch.

Cherry blossoms are the perfect theme for a spring party. Yesterday some friends celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary, and I helped out with the decor and food for a wonderful party to celebrate. A 40th wedding anniversary is traditionally the ruby anniversary, so we tried to incorporate some red into the party and went with red and pink colour palette, one of my very favourite colour combinations.

We used a church hall for the party, and tried to give it some character with our decor. The round tables had simple white cloths, and beautiful organza pink table runners. We used silk cherry blossoms, and put them in real water to weight the vases, and make them look more authentic. We wanted a grouping of three items on the table so we used a tea light in a simple glass container, and some roses. We originally thought of roses in silver julep cups, but they were a little over budget, so I had the idea of using silver creams and sugars which we were able to rent. I love the eclectic, vintage feel they created.

Another detail, to tie in the ruby anniversary was that we hung some family pictures on the cherry blossoms and decorated them with red gem stickers.

We covered the room’s bulletin boards with some simple white table cloths to create a neutral background. At the front of the room I hung a beautiful banner to mark the occasion, created with red and pink scrapbook papers.

Above the banner we hung a gorgeous bouquet of paper lanterns. This was my favourite detail of the entire day – I love how the Japanese cherry blossom lanterns tied into our theme.

These were the background for the two food tables one was savoury and the other was full of sweets.

We also added some red and pink roses to the washroom, along with Bath and Body Works cherry blossom foaming hand soap and hand cream. Love is in the details!

We used lots of red and pink roses on the food, and drink tables, and various red and pink candles in silver and mercy glass candle holders.

A fun detail on the coffee and tea table, which the couple added and I will definitely use again in the future was to add a tiny amount of coloured sugar to the regular sugar. Isn’t it pretty.

The food for the party turned out really well. For the savoury table we served a variety of tea sandwiches.

We served veggies and dip in a plastic cup, which the guests loved the ease of.

There was also a large cheese tray. I lined up the cheese and crackers in rows, and thought it made for a really pretty presentation.

I made a variety of tea sandwiches.

There were toast cups with chicken salad and onion sprouts, cream cheese pin wheels, ham and Swiss cheese with honey mustard, egg salad on mini croissants, salmon, and cucumber fingers.

I made some cute pics and used them in some of the sandwiches.

There was also a sweet table.

The highlight of the dessert table was the cupcakes, looking so beautiful on their pink and white stands. We re-painted the stands from the yellow dessert table, see them in yellow here. The cupcakes were ordered from Cupcakes Canada, and they were delicious.

I made the cupcake labels, and the pics for the sandwiches with a cherry blossom graphic I found on-line to tie back into our theme.

Along with the cupcakes, I made a large fruit tray. I placed the fruit in rows, like the cheese and crackers, for a pretty presentation. I was lucky enough to find toothpicks for the fruit with tiny hearts on theme. How fitting for a wedding anniversary.

The rest of the delicious sweets were made by the family and friends, and included lemon tarts, shortbread and chocolate spritz cookies. We also included mini chocolate éclairs, and some pink meringue kisses.

It was a beautiful day for a beautiful couple. I loved all the cherry blossom and red and pink details, and think they’d be a beautiful theme for a shower, birthday, wedding or any spring party.

Congratulations Ian and Lois, 40 years married and still very much in love, sometimes life is a party!

This post is linked up at Under the Table and Dreaming, I Heart Naptime, Tatertots and Jello, and Between Naps on the Porch.