My Tea Party and Book Exchange - At Last

Yesterday was a wonderful day and just perfect for a warm and cozy tea party.

My special guests were:

My mom, the Sewing Bee, my friend, the More Creative Bee, and my friend, the Fabulous Phyllis, plus Betty from She's Sew Pretty and her sweet daughter.  My daughter, Baby Bee, was our server and also fellow partaker of tea and treats.

The menu:

We started with homemade scones, lemon curd, and a version of clotted cream.  I found a recipe for clotted cream that used mascarpone cheese, whipping cream, a little sugar, and a little vanilla.  

I made two teas - English Tea and a Wild Berry Plum green tea from the Republic of Tea.  We (okay, mainly me) enjoyed the Wild Berry Plum tea so much that it's all gone!  I'll have to buy some more.  It was just delicious.  We also had ice water and pink lemonade.

After scones, Baby Bee served us some savories.  I made mini quiches, cucumber sandwiches, and - what I thought was the most delicious - a chicken salad with dry roasted almonds on oatnut bread spread with basil butter.  Those were yummy!  We also a had a salad of spring greens with a pomegranate dressing.  

The book exchange:

The guests brought 3-4 books each and then we drew numbers for who got to choose first.  The first time we went in number order, then reverse order, and then we went by everyone's first initial.  The book exchange sparked lots of conversations about what we had read, wanted to read, and our favorite authors. I think everyone went home happy with some new books to enjoy.  There was lots of Nora Roberts, Nicholas Sparks, and Jodi Picoult.  

The table:

I finally decided to kind of have a garden/spring/literary theme.  Alyssa from Boston Bee had a great idea to include literary quotes but I had such a hard time picking out the "perfect" quotes that I ended up running out of time to get those made.

I used a burlap tablecloth for that garden look.  

The plates were Nantucket Basket from Wedgwood - my wedding china.

On top of the white plates I put my green depression glass in the dogwood pattern.  

Our teacups were the blue glass (depression glass???) and our stemware was from Tag.  

The flatware was my grandmother's silverplate - Spring Garden by Holmes and Edwards.

I used my Nantucket Basket teapot and my Song Bird teapot from Rosie B. Farmer.  I used this set's creamer and sugar too.

The napkins are some I've had for a long time.  I think they might be Martha Stewart from Kmart, but I'm not 100% sure.  The napkin rings were just some mini wreaths I picked up several years ago at Beverly Crafts.

My centerpiece was a vintage looking blue pot filled with pansies.  (some left from the 1/2 flat my friend gave me)  I stacked some books with blue and green covers around the flowers to continue the color scheme.

The lovely surprise:

When things go wrong, they always seem to happen at the most inopportune time.  Well, Sweet Bee Cottage has old pipes and an old main line.  And.......you might already know where this is going......but about and hour and a half before the party our main line clogged.  Lovely, right?  I don't even want to think about what would have happened if someone had to go to the bathroom as soon as they arrived.  Luckily we found a plumber to come out and clear the clog.  So as we enjoyed our tea treats, right outside the windows in our sunroom, our main line was being cleared.  More loveliness, right?  Oh well.  At least it was cleared quickly and by the end of the party I could allow my guests to use the bathroom.

I also gave each of my guests a S-P-R-I-N-G garland I made and some other sweet little feminine treats.  And I got to use my milk glass taco again to display them.  

Well, now I'm in the mood for another cup of tea.  Baby Bee has agreed to join me in a cup.  She found she enjoyed the tea.  Won't you join us too?  Or,  I could still make a latte for you.

I'm so happy to be sharing this table at Between Naps on the Porch.  

Thank you so much for coming by!    

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

More preparing for my little tea party on Saturday.  

Trying to decide which dishes, flatware, etc. to use.  Thought you might like to chime in with your opinion.

First up are teapots:

Which one do you like?  Actually I'll probably use two of them.  I only have one tea cozy though.  Hmmmm....I don't think that will be too much of a problem though.  

Now, on to the glasses for water or lemonade.....

I have to confess, I think the depression glass is my favorite, but it doesn't have much capacity.  (Can you guess who just taught their third graders metric and customary units of measurement? Yep, that would be me!)  Which one would you enjoy?  

Okay, now for flatware....

Some are a little more casual than others.  I love those red and white ones, but I'll probably go with the silver.  I might even use my new incredible bargain silver plate.  The ones I mentioned here.  (I took a picture of them, but it was too blurry to show you and I was just too lazy to go and reshoot them.)

Let's look at plates next.......

I have always loved layering this depression glass on my wedding china.

See any combinations you think might be the bee's knees?

And I can't forget the all important teacup.....

Well....what do you think?  What do you think would look good together?  

I didn't even talk about linens or a centerpiece.  

Now remember, we're also having a book exchange....

Should we have a more literary looking table?

Or should we celebrate spring?

The weather is supposed to be rainy (again) on Saturday, so maybe not too springy.

Oh I am so excited for Saturday!  

I sure wish you could come!  

Wouldn't that be a delight?

Thank you so much for stopping in to visit.  

I'm always so delighted to see your bright and shining face!