Afternoon Tea Ideas from The Parlor
Tea Party Favors

Bracelets to Make and Take Home

Beaded bracelets or even friendship bracelets are an easy activity and very suited to 9 year old girls. For the beaded bracelet you'll just need thin hat elastic and assorted beads - you can buy these in bags at the dollar stores (or check out the local goodwill / second hand store for strings of beads and use the beads from them). Or for Friendship bracelets you'd just need some skeins of embroidery cotton. I also noticed at the dollar store packs of key rings - they were just wooden shapes with a key ring attached. There were 6/8 in a pack for $2. You could supply some paint, glue, glitter, sequins, beads for them to create their own key ring to attach to their school bags. ~Lizzy, Parlor Hostess and Moderator

Victorian Bracelets

A friend of mine makes the little bracelets that Victorian girls wore. They used to exchange their favorite buttons and make friendship bracelets. Every guest could bring buttons to be exhanged. Including rhinestone or charm type buttons looks especially nice. You use a length of elastic 1/4" to 1/2" wide, and the length for a childs wrist with an extra 1/2" for stitching the circle together and stitch the buttons around the elastic. The reproductions go for $80.00 and up in some catalogs. ~dindi1

Tussie Mussies, Nosegays & Frames

My Brownie troop hosted a tea party for their grandparents in the spring for which they made tussie mussies and nosegays. As the girls were only 1st and 2nd graders, we used paper doilies and fresh flowers so they could do them themselves. You could use fabric stiffener and use fabric doilies, with maybe dried flowers?

Another thing we did that the grandparents just loved was picture frames. At a previous meeting, they made popsicle stick frames, painted them, and attached buttons, bows and trims. As grandparents arrived, we took a polaroid photo of each girl with their grandparents and attached to the frames. ~MommyMommy

Tea Trays

My daughter and her friends made tea trays at her birthday party. I bought wooden trays on sale for about $2 at Michaels and the girls decorated them with glitter pens, stickers and lace. They dried by the end of the party and each girl had one to take home. ~Sashisand

Victorian Fans

Victorian fans are easy to make - accordion style using pretty walllpaper and ribbon or long tear-drop cardboard shapes - decorate them with glued-on pictures or make your own and join them on the back with ribbon. Punch a hole at the bottom of the tear drops, tie with ribbons or tassles. ~Heather300M

Girl's Birthday Tea Favors

I have had tea parties for my daughter's Birthday twice. The first one was at an old historic mansion in St. Louis and they gave the girls fans made of wallpaper like on the walls of one room in the house. For the other one I made little purses for the girls and stuffed them with ring pops, candy bracelets, hair clips, tiny bottles of nail polish, and other "girly" things. They loved them!! Another idea is to let them make some kind of purses and glue decorations on them or decorate hats. You have to have fancy hats at a tea party! You could even have a dress-up trunk with boas, hats, and gloves, and maybe let them take some of them home? They could even decorate big fancy cookies. Tea parties are so uch fun and you can really get creative!

If you don't want to make purses, they have very cute "bubble purses" at the Everything's $1. Store. All of the gorls at dance class have them and we used them for favor bags at a Birthday party (not a tea party). They were a huge hit. We put similar girly things to the ones we had at the tea party where I had made the purses. ~Cynamar

"Shrunken Hats"

I went to a Mothers/Daughters banquet with my mother-in-law and her church ladies made stryfoam cups into hat magnets -- they shrunk them in the oven and the cups melted down into hat shapes. I was told the ovens were set about 250 degrees F. and the ladies put the cups upside down on foil covered cookie sheets and watched until the cups shrunk down into the "hats". Then removed them from oven, let cool, and glued a ribbon around the "crown" part, a posy, and a magnet on the back side of the "hat". They were very cute! ~Rush'd Lady, Parlor Hostess and Moderator

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