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A Tea Party Birthday

tea party birthday

Put on your best dress and get ready for a tea party birthday in high style! Here are our favorite tea party ideas for invitations, decorations, activities and lots more.

Tea Party Birthday Invitations

Set a sweet tone right from the start with great tea party invitations. You can either purchase pre-made invites or make your own. Here are some choices for both options:

Tea Cup Party Invitations -- Put two pieces of paper together and cut them into the shape of a teacup. Glue all the edges but the top so your cup forms a type of envelope. Decorate your teacup with hearts or flowers. Now use a square piece of white paper that looks like a teabag to write your party's information (make sure this paper is small enough to fit into the teacup). Punch a hole at the top of the teabag and tie a ribbon to the top as a decorative teabag string. Insert the teabag into the teacup.
**When writing your party information, you might consider using formal wording or calligraphy. You might write something like, "Kindly Join Us for ________'s Tea Party Birthday. Wear your best finery and bring a favorite doll or stuffed animal as a special guest."
Teapot Invitations -- Make your tea party invitation in the shape of a teapot (or find a downloadable image on your computer.) Cut two papers in the same size and glue all but the top to make this shape into a teapot envelope. On the front of your invitation write, "You're Invited to a Dress-Up Tea Party Birthday" and follow up with your party information. Now take two smaller white papers and attach them to the ends of a piece of string or ribbon. On one card, write the word "Pull". On the other, write, "RSVP (and your phone number.)" Stick the RSVP card into the teapot and let the other card hang over the front of your invitation.
**Tea Party Invitation Tips** -- If you choose to make your own invitations, don't forget to include the date, location, and time of your party. It is also helpful to put the host's name, RSVP by date, and either your phone number or email.

Here are some invitations that we really like, available from Tiny Prints:

Tea Time Invitations

Classic Teacups Invitations

Terrific Teapots Invitations

Tea Party Decorations

Your decorations don't have to be elaborate, but they should give your tea party birthday an elegant atmosphere where young ladies can feel beautiful and grown up. Here are some suggestions:

Pick a pastel color scheme and put up balloons, streamers, and a decorative table in these colors.
Consider flowers, lace, hearts, ribbons, and doilies as motifs for your party decorations.
Set your tea party table with a floral or lace tablecloth.
Make a tea party centerpiece by using a pretty teapot with flowers arranged inside of it.
Search thrift stores for teacups. Give each guest a different teacup and saucer at her place setting.
Use doilies under your food when serving sandwiches, cakes, or cookies.
Buy small flower pots at your local craft store and paint each guest's name on one. Plant a small flower in each and set these out at your table as place setters that can later go home as party favors.
Set a separate smaller table for any dolls or animals your guests brought.
Put out pieces of white paper, along with cups of crayons, stickers, and glitter, and let each guest decorate their own placemats.

Here are some party supply sets that can help set the tone for a lovely tea party birthday!

Tea For You Party Supplies

Light Pink Party Supplies

Lime Green and Hot Pink Deluxe Pack for 24

Green and Pink Party Supplies

Tea Party Birthday Activities

Dress Up -- Set up an area for tea party dress up as an arrival activity for your guests. You can either gather clothes, shoes, hats, and wigs from a thrift shop, or use things you have around the house. You might also consider buying some dress up items that the girls can later take home as favors, such as feather boas, tiaras, sunglasses, fancy hair clips, gloves, lip gloss, paper fans, or nail polish. Be sure to have your camera ready to capture the the girls in their finery!
Fashion Show -- Make a fabric runway, put on some music, and follow up the dress up activity with a fashion show. As the guests walk down the runway, have some fun describing their beautiful new outfits. Keep the cameras rolling!
Make Candy Necklaces -- Set out pre-cut pieces of yarn or ribbon (or use long licorice whips). Put out small bowls of "o-shaped" candy or cereal and pieces of hollow licorice and let your guests string their own necklaces.
Teacup Tower -- See who can make the tallest tower of alternating teacups and saucers (all paper goods, of course). Who can set the record for the highest tower before everything crashes down. (You could also stack sugar cubes for a similar activity.)
Story Time -- Read aloud a tea party story such as Miss Spider's Tea Party by David Kirk, Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor, or The Best Tea Party Ever by Sonali Fry.
Tea Time Musical Chairs -- Use "sophisticated" music for a game of musical chairs.
Oh, Waiter! Relay Race -– (You will need one tray and one plastic glass). In this relay, the children have to balance a tray or cookie sheet with 1 full glass of water on it “waiter style." Split the group into two teams and have them carry the tray back and forth. The team with the fullest glass at the end of the relay wins!
Moving Marshmallows -– (You will need two bowls, 1 bag of mini marshmallows, 1 spoon, and 1 blindfold). Fill one bowl with the mini marshmallows. Blindfold 1 player and hand them a spoon. Have the blindfolded player see how many marshmallows they can move from the full bowl to the empty one (set up somewhere near, but not right next to the full bowl.) Then have the next player go. After each player, count how many marshmallows have been successfully moved from one bowl to the other, and then subtract the number of spilled marshmallows from the total. The player with the highest total wins!
Sugar Cube Relay Race -- Divide your group into two teams and line them up for a relay race. Hand each team a teaspoon with a sugar cube on it. Have them race from point A to point B and back without dropping the sugar off the spoon. If the cube falls, the racer must stop and replace it before going on. The first team with all its members back and seated wins!

Tea Party Food Ideas

The most important part of a tea party birthday is, of course, the tea party! Consider having older siblings dress as elegant waiters or waitresses and putting them in charge of serving the party goers. Here are some tea party food ideas for your party:

An assortment of herbal teas (be sure to include lemonade or ice tea for those who don't enjoy real tea)
Colored sugar cubes (Make these by putting a couple drops of food coloring per 1/2 cup of sugar. Press the sugar into small cookie cutters and let it set into fun shapes)
Bite size snacks such as cheese cubes and cut fruit
Sandwiches cut into fun shapes with cookie cutters. (Peanut butter and jelly, tuna salad, deviled ham, or Nutella)
Animal Crackers in fancy bowls
Biscuits or scones
Chocolate covered strawberries
Cupcakes
Doll Cake (Bake your favorite variety of regular cake (two or more layers). Stick a doll in the center. Cut the cake to shape the doll's skirt. Decorate to look like a fancy ball gown.) **These cakes are also offered at most grocery stores or bakeries with a little advance notice.

Tea Party Favors

Here are some of our favorite ideas for tea party favors:

Dress up items such as feather boas, tiaras, sunglasses, fancy hair clips, gloves, and paper fans
Make up items such as lip gloss, nail polish, or body glitter
Flowers in a hand painted pot (See decorations)
Pretty Tea Cup Favor Boxes
A Teacup and Saucer
Decorated Placemats and Candy Necklaces (From party activities)
Assorted Herbal Tea Bags tied with ribbon or put in a small drawstring bag

Hope you found some helpful tea party birthday ideas on this page. Enjoy the Party!

If you enjoyed these tea party birthday ideas, you might also enjoy these parties:

Candy Party

Pink Party

Cupcake Party

Do You Have Some Ideas
for a Great Kids' Birthday Party?

Have you thrown or attended a great kid's party recently? We'd love to hear about it! Tell us about your party and what made it special. We'll post it here to share with all our readers. Plus, your party will automatically be entered in our next party submission contest!

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