Welcome To My Tea Party!

I have been giving tea parties for several years and it's my most favorite of entertaining. Due to family medical problems I'm sharing the tablescape of a tea party I had last year. I enjoy creating my centerpieces from things I have on hand. I seldom ever use just a vase of fresh flowers as a centerpiece. To me that is too easy! I enjoy the challenge of shopping around the house for just the right things to put together for a unique centerpiece. These centerpieces become a conversational piece as my guests always want to hear about how the idea for each centerpiece came about. I usually like to have a theme for my tea parties and whatever the theme is becomes the subject for a centerpiece to be the highlight of the theme.

This centerpiece evolved from using my Old Country Roses china. I didn't have a theme for the party. It was a reunion party for some long-time friends I have known for 35 years. Since I couldn't come up with an appropriate theme, I started looking around for what to use. I had just purchased two OCR hatboxes at an outlet mall. These boxes are what the plates are shipped in, they sell them for $7 and $5 each! The rim on the lid has the words Old Country Roses around it, but I covered the rim with a ribbon. The ribbon was about 1/8 of an inch too short and I remedied that with using a clip-on vintage earring in that spot! Perfect!A ribbon runner was used under the hatbox. Mostly vintage items were used in and around the hatbox: scarf, pearls, crocheted gloves, a small perfume bottle, small beaded purse, a figurine from my childhood, a yellow rose hankie, a pair of tiny crocheted baby shoes, a small oval frame with a photo of my grandmother when she was 16 years old. A small crystal dish held two pairs of 1928 vintage-look earrings that I used to tell an interesting story about. Two candles in the shape of vintage shoes filled with pink and yellow roses completed the vignette.

Some of the details of the tea party: A burgundy tablecloth was used to compliment my Old Country Roses china. The centerpiece was a chintz OCR hatbox vignette of vintage things in and around it. The hatbox was atop a ribbon table runner, vintage crocheted gloves, pearls, and a wine colored scarf overflowed out from under the lid of the hat box. A small oval picture frame holding a picture of my grandmother at age 16, a small beaded purse, a figurine, a perfume bottle, hankie, vintage earrings, and tiny crocheted baby shoes surrounded the hatbox. Two candles in the shape of vintage shoes filled with roses were on each side of the hatbox.Gold leafed chargers, white paper doilies, were topped with Old Country Roses plates. Floral OCR napkins were tied with red velvet roses. Food on OCR three-tiered servers, yellow depression glass, and platters decorated with fabric ribbons intertwined.

Menu: Orange Chicken salad in phyllo cups; Aunt Thelma's Cucumber sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, and pimento cheese sandwiches. Lemon scones, lemon curd, strawberry bread with cream cheese mixed with strawberry preserves; lemon bread, cold veggie pizza; Sausage pinwheels; Russian tea cakes; and mini surprise filled pound cakes. I also made butter pats into shapes of roses.

We read "Of Teacups and Friends" by Linda gaither. I told about the Earring story. We looked at pictures of past parties in photo albums and some copied recipes.

This is the lemon curd recipe I use, it is very easy, just takes six minutes in the microwave.

Lemon Curd

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup fresh or frozen lemon juice

3 eggs,

1 stick butter, melted

Melt butter, let cool slightly. In a glass bowl, beat eggs until frothy. Add sugar and lemon juice to eggs, stir, then add the melted butter and mix well.Microwave 3 minutes, remove and stir with wisk. Microwave 3 more minutes, wisk. Repeat if necessary. Don't forget that mixture will thicken when it cools. Recipe from Magnolia & Ivy Tea Room cookbook

For other recipes, contact me.

I hope you enjoyed my tea party as much as I did! Please leave a comment!

Thank you!

Katherine