For Ivy’s 2nd birthday, we went with a Tea for Two theme! I had so much fun planning out the details of it. The actual day of the party, I injured myself while trying to put up the balloon arch, so my photos are not super extensive.
I had a few ideas of ways I wanted to tie in the theme: decorations, dress up options for the kids, and tea party styled food
Decorations
Let’s start with the decorations. I had some really great finds on Amazon! A lot of the decorations came from Big Dot of Happiness. I will definitely be browsing their selection again! They had so many cute themes and decorations in their storefront.
1. cupcake toppers, 2. teapot centerpiece, 3. tiered trays, 4. paper tea cups, 5. 2 centerpieces
I found some teapots (one was real, one was a planter) at Goodwill. I spray painted the planter to better match the color scheme. They were perfect to use for centerpieces! Because there were still a couple more tables, so I also used some large Mason jars. Inside, I had pieces of foam blocks covered with paper shreds from Dollar Tree. I just stuck the sticks from the Amazon centerpieces in to the foam block and Voila!
The “table runners” were made out of a pack of doilies I found at Party City. I stuck them to the tablecloths using looped tape.
I made paper teacups and hung them from our chandelier. You can find the tutorial here.
The balloon arch came from Hobby Lobby. I liked the matte pastel colors in it!
Dress up
I was so excited to add some dress up things for the tea party! There was an old trunk that a friend’s mom gave me years ago sitting in our garage. With a little paint and some contact paper, I was able to make an adorable dress up trunk! There were going to be several little girls Ivy’s age and boys Drew’s age; I wanted to have things for both them. I went to Dollar Tree and grabbed a few tutus and dress up jewelry. They had satin gloves at Walmart for Halloween, so I snagged a few of those too. I tried to get these hats, but they didn’t arrive until two days after the party (womp, womp)
For the boys, I made some felt bow ties and grabbed some 99 cent top hats from Party City. It was fun seeing the kids try stuff on from the trunk and play together!
A bonus item for the dress up area was a mirror! This was a total lucky find from Goodwill. I had been on the hint for a mirror to use for this, but wasnt having any luck. Then I found this gem for $8 at our local store! What’s even better is that I also found it the same day as I found an old entertainment center for $5 that will be transformed to a dress up wardrobe for Christmas! The mirror fits PERFECTLY on the side of it!
Food
I wanted to focus on “tea party” style foods- if it was tiny, it fit the bill!
For the menu, we did jelly meatballs, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, fruit, veggies, mini quiche, peanut butter and jelly tea sandwiches, cranberry tarts, and mini pigs in a blanket. As far as cake, simple rainbow chip (because we all know that is superior to funfetti) cupcakes with the Amazon toppers did the trick,
I had so much fun with the presentation for the food. I used the two plastic tiered trays from Amazon for the tarts, quiches, and pigs in a blanket. My MIL brought the clear tray which was just perfect for the sandwiches. I also used my old wooden tray (formerly from the coffee bar) to hold the fruit cups. I cut up some strawberries, apple slices, and grapes and set them out in the paper tea cups from Amazon.
For the veggie tray, I grabbed an oversized paper mache “2” from Hobby Lobby and cut the “top” off using a utility knife. After clearing out the stuff from inside, I lined it with wax paper before adding the veggies. The ranch dip was set out in a tea cup.
Finally, the favors! I opted to make some sugar cookies in the shape of tea bags. I was heavily inspired again by
