Need Something Fun to Do at Home? Throw a Tea Party!

Over the weekend my daughters and I had the loveliest tea party and just I had to share it with you! Anyone with daughters has attended many make believe tea parties with dolls and plastic tea sets, right? But once your kids get a little older, a real tea party can be so nice. I’ve been wanting to have an elegant, grown-up tea party with my 15-year-old daughter and 13-year-old stepdaughter for a long time, so I was thrilled when they came to me the other day and said, “We want to have a tea party!”

If you’re looking for something new to do during quarantine, a tea party is a perfect event for kids ages five and over. You can also have a tea party with your husband, parents or roommates – whoever is stuck at home with you. This could even be a really fun surprise for your mom on Mother’s Day, if you’ll be able to see her. Or if you have older kids like me, just show them this blog and let them do it all for you on Mother’s Day.

What You’ll Need

Here is what we gathered from around the house for our tea party:

Small tables and chairs
White tablecloth
White cloth napkins
Ceramic teapots
Tea cups and saucers
Honey dipper stick
Small pitcher for milk
Small bowls for honey, sugar and cinnamon
Dessert trays
Small plates
Spoons for tea and sweeteners
Paper and pens for table place cards and invitations
Vases and fresh flowers
Candles and candle holders
A device to play music

We didn’t have a matching tea set at our tea party, and since we had so much fun I know we will be throwing more tea parties in the future. So I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect tea set, and here some I’m looking at purchasing:

Recipes

The girls wanted to do all the baking themselves, so I just helped by bringing in the ingredients and cleaning up after them. They chose macarons and scones to make from scratch as our pastries. Neither recipe was very difficult, but the scones were especially easy and came out perfectly. We chose a nut-free recipe for the macarons because my stepdaughter can’t have nuts. In both recipes, we used Earth Balance instead of butter, and soy milk instead of milk since I’m dairy-free. Here are the recipes the girls used:

Nut Free Macarons

Simple Sweet Scones

Invitations & Name Cards

When I woke up the morning of the tea party, the girls had placed a tea party invitation on my desk in my office. It was the sweetest thing ever and melted my heart! The girls also designed table name cards that matched the invitations. Of course this part of the tea party is completely unnecessary, but your kids will probably love decorating the tea party invitations and name cards. They can even create pretty menus too.

Attire

I assumed we would dress in typical tea party attire – like pretty floral dresses, but my daughters had other ideas…they wanted to make this a formal tea party and wear gowns! So we started rummaging around my closet and searching through my old boxes of clothes for formal dresses. In college I used to collect vintage gowns and the girls unearthed that box which I had totally forgotten about. They fell in love with the vintage gowns and each found one that fit. We decided we would all wear a different pastel color. The girls also asked that I wear soft neutral makeup (they said no winged eyeliner, lol) and vintage-looking jewelry.

I searched for and linked several vintage and vintage-inspired gowns just like ours, all for under $100 – and some as low as $8. You can shop them here:

Decor & Set-up

I’ve always dreamed of having a tea party in our sunroom, which is exactly what my girls envisioned too. They pulled different pieces of furniture from around the house and completely rearranged the sunroom. They found a white table cloth, white candles and gold candlesticks, and picked wildflowers from the yard. They also brought in a Bluetooth speaker to set the mood with pretty music. They wouldn’t let me see the room until the time of the tea party, so they put together this beautiful set-up themselves.

The Tea Party

The décor was finished, the candles were lit, and the music was playing softly as I entered the room in my gown. Let me tell you, after endless weeks of wearing sweatpants and not going anywhere, it was very exciting to dress up in a gown! I couldn’t believe how beautiful the girls had decorated the sunroom. And they looked so pretty in their soft makeup and vintage gowns. The girls insisted that we all speak in British accents throughout the tea party, which made us feel extra posh. We had so much fun, giggling and laughing the whole time. I felt bad not inviting my husband and stepsons, but the girls said no boys allowed!

I hope our little afternoon of fun will help inspire you to create a lovely tea party of your own, and that it gives you a bit of sunshine and joy among your long days at home. Let me know in the comments below if you plan to throw a tea party, and who in your house will join you!