Normally I would save this draft to share next year closer to Valentine’s Day (which I might forget to do and it will be lost will all my other drafts!) but I can’t wait to share this, it was too much fun. For Valentine’s Day this year me and my girls threw a “Bee Mine” themed tea party. But these ideas would work well for a spring tea or party as well. I have thrown tea parties for over a decade now, but as my daughters have gotten older I knew I wanted to give myself a little break and have more tea parties that involve them. Luckily I am friends with all of their friends moms so it makes it fun to have their friends along with the moms so we can enjoy it together. It was so much fun, I don’t know if I could have another tea party without them! While my tea parties have always been special to me and I still really enjoy that time with friends, there is something about little girls at a tea party that makes my heart happy! And I know my girls won’t be young for long, and I want to enjoy this while I can. I involved them in all the planning, cooking, and decorating too.
I made the invites by printing the wording on pink cardstock and adding some embellishments made with my Silhouette cameo. The bee and hive I found in the Silhouette store but the heart I made by fusing hexagon shapes together. Don’t ask about how much time I wasted getting that right…
I have lots of flowery tea party linens so we used those to decorate, along with some flowery teapots and a beehive pot as well.
The girls helped make a pinata using a 12″ balloon (I think?) and we cut strips of crepe streamers to glue around, cutting fringe on the bottom half.
I hung it from our light with a grapevine wreath and some bees we made from yellow pom poms. We wrapped them with black pipe cleaners and attached vellum heart wings. They were hung with some thread, or you could use fishing line too.
I printed the menu out and added a cute bee clipart to the top, and made the lettering in grew, yellow, and black. I like putting the sweets and savory in different colors.
I used the “Sparkling Nectar” recipe from Lucy’s Fairy Garden party, found here. I am always amazed at how much the kids love this. A 2 liter of 7 up mixed with a bottle of cranberry juice. Easy!
For the adults I made Hibiscus tea. You can buy this in bags, I just steep dried hibiscus, it’s the same thing.
I made some “honeycomb snack mix” using my old monster munch recipe, using honeycomb cereal instead of chex, and dipping half the pretzels in black meltys with yellow sprinkles, and the other half of them in yellow meltys with black sprinkles and using valentines m&m’s in place of the reese’s pieces.
Bumble bee pretzels were a big hit. Just dip large pretzel twists in white meltys and sprinkle with sanding sugar for some wing sparkle. Place close together on wax paper. Let dry. Dip the top third in yellow meltys and place on top of 2 twists. Carefully add strips with yellow and black nonpareil sprinkles. Let dry. The yellow should “glue” the rod to the wings.
And of course honeycomb candy!
And bee themed sugar cookies of course. The wings had to get a little luster dust too 🙂
Cupcakes were chocolate with yellow buttercream, and a bumble bee made from marshmallow fondant.
Scones and honey butter! Just whip butter with a little honey for the honey butter.
For the sandwiches I made Artichoke, Radish, and Curry Chicken.
Plus some kid sandwiches. I made all of them using this bee and hive Tovolo sandwich cutter we had.
Some I made with P”BEE” and honey, and the others into fairy bread.
For fairy bread, just spread bread with frosting or butter and liberally coat with nonpareil sprinkles. I did yellow for the hives and black for the bees. Fairy bread is ALWAYS a hit with kids.
I was excited to put my “Bee happy” cookie mold from House on the Hill to good use too!
This was the best part. I didn’t even take many pictures, I was enjoying watching the girls have fun so much!
If you have never had a tea party with little girls, you are missing out!
You can see them in the background a little, I forgot to take a picture, but we made “roses” from hershey kisses for each guest to take home along with a plastic ring that had a bumble bee with a heart that said “bee mine”. My little one found them at the cake decorating store and couldn’t resist. 🙂
