Tea Party Report

Here is the finished cake. I made it as a table, covered with a fondant lace tablecloth and, of course, a tea set. My good friend Becky rescued me when I couldn't find white fondant at the craft store and gave me some she had leftover from the last birthday cake she made. I took a large doily and laid it over the top of the rolled out fondant, trimmed around it to get the scalloped edge and then colored in all of the holes with a pink, edible ink marker leftover from a cookie decorating kit. then, I brushed the whole thing with pink Luster Dust to give it a light pink pearly sheen. It turned out pretty incredible, if I do say so myself ;)
and here is the table all spread out with the goodies.
I really love this picture- it so looks like a magazine spread. The china tea set we used Mark bought for me in Germany for my birthday before we were married. It used to sit out on a table in the corner of the living room until we had kids ;)
I have more closeup pics of the tea goodies, most taken by Becky for me (thanks!), but I'm not willing to resize and upload them all for you tonight. You'll just have to wait for a LO to see them I think. During the party I kept thinking to myself that I was forgetting something, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I finally realized while I was cleaning up the kitchen that I had forgot to get out the lemon poppyseed bread I had made. It actually worked out pretty well as I had also forgotten that there was a potluck after church today and so I had something ready to take with me.

Once the girls started arriving I set them to making purses from foam craft kits I found at JoAnn's. The instructions left something to be desired, but we figured it out.
Then, they got to decorate hats with flowers and ribbon and don white gloves. All of those were found by Becky for me during the after-Easter clearance at Target earlier this year. The flowers were mostly pulled out of my old craft stash.
A group pic, before the eating began with all of the girls dressed in their tea 'finery'.
I was impressed with all of the girls' willingness to at least try the tea. I'm sure most of them had never had hot tea before. A couple of them didn't like it much, but that is OK. They also seemed drawn to the cookies and breads rather than the sandwhiches, but that was OK too as us adults were more than willing to eat those!

Most of the girls sat together in the LR. Two of the guests grabbed spots at the tea table and had fun laughing and giggling together- it was cute to watch!
Then, Beth and Carissa opened their gifts. They got a few more $ to spend on something, two versions of Twister- the 'classic' and a new DVD Dance one- watches, a couple of Polly Pocket sets, some new American Girl books and black feather boas. Here they are hamming it up with the boas after all of the guests had left.
They have spent the most time playing with the little tea set I bought to go on the cake, and the classic Twister game.
Kari and Kaitlin and Brenna were having loads of fun right at the end of the party. and a couple pics of them sharing tea with Brenna and Sarah on the living room floor.

Well, that is it for now. Mark has left to drive to Denver for the work conference he will be attending all week. It's time to get Brenna headed towards bed, and Sarah is screaming in my ear since she hasn't hardly napped all day.