Tea Party Behind The Scenes - Fabric

What's a tea party without real cloth napkins?

Or teabags, sugar cubes and lemon slices?



To toss into a giant teacup?


Or the sugar-laden treats?


Let it be said here that I've always liked felt food,
and I wish I had more time to indulge in the making
of it. When we decided we'd be doing a tea party
birthday this year - well, I indulged.


Quite the smorgasbord of calories, were they real.
Fortunately they were mere felt, fleece, beads and stuffing.


We hid them all over the yard,


gave each party guest a treasure map,


armed them with their handbags,


and sent them off to seek -


- one jam tart, one cookie, one cupcake,
one cinnamon roll and one donut.

These were their goodbye-and-thank-you-
for-coming gifts, and for their sweet friendship
to the little birthday girl.

P.S. No tutorials for these - you can find tutorials for felt food all over the internet. I adapted two tutorials for my felt treats - Rachael Rabbit's fabric cupcake and Skip To My Lou's famous doughnuts and winged everything else.

Tea Party Behind The Scenes - Cardboard

I had sooooo much fun with cardboard at this party.
I suspect that, on a subconscious level, I actually
like cardboard more than fabric. Incredible!

First up is a really simple cardboard beanbag toss board.

I drew a teacup, cut out the mouth, and had the kids decorate it.

Er... although first they had to play with it.

Ahem, so, as I was saying, the kids decorated it.

Tune in to the next post to see the beanbags!

Moving on now to the main cardboard thing:

Old granny handbags!

Cut out two handbag shapes from corrugated cardboard


and a 5" gusset of thick kraft paper
(bought in huge roll from Home Depot)

snip the edges of the gusset to wrap around the curves,
and glue it on with a good strong glue (I use UHU).


Reinforce the side with clear packing tape,


punch a hole on each side


and twist half a pipe cleaner/chenille stem to make a loop.


Repeat to make enough for every guest:


On the day itself, provide handbag-shaped paper
(we used wrapping paper and scrapbooking paper) in pairs


and a table full of supplies, including chenille stems,
glue dots and kid-friendly white glue:


Polka dot beads from here.
Self-adhesive gems from here.
Buttons from here.
Glue dots from here.


The little crafters threaded beads onto a chenille stem
(leaving about an inch free on each end)


and twisted the ends through the loops on the handbag


to make a handle.

Then they decorated their handbags with paper and
stick-ons. I have learned from experience that white glue
is horrible, disappointing and useless for anything 3D
that needs to dry quickly and strong (i.e. frustrating for
kids in general). However, it is marvelous for flat sticking,
like these paper panels on the sides of the handbag.


For 3D gluing, like adhering gems and buttons,
I use glue dots. They are fast, strong and not messy.
Kids love them because they turn anything into a magic,
instant sticker. The whole activity took about 20 minutes,
and even the younger kids were able to make and
decorate their handbags with very little help, thanks to
the glue dots.

This is one of my favorite cardboard crafts, I think -
it has a little of everything - gluing, sticking,
decorating, beading, and little girl/old granny charm.


When they were done, we hung name tags on them,
and the girls collected prizes, candy and favors in
them all afternoon.

At the end of the party, they took them home as goodie bags.


Want to make your own? Here's the pattern:
Click on it to open it up to full size (US letter) and
print it as you would any letter-size document.



Enjoy!

Tea Party Behind The Scenes - Papier Mache

We only made one thing of papier mache for the party - the teapot pinata. We used the flour-and-water-and-salt recipe (equal parts water to flour and a teaspoon of salt for anti-mould purposes) for the paste. Last year we used white glue and water. Having tried both, I'll say that I much prefer the glue and water version, even if it is one thousand times messier. Maybe it's something to do with how glue hardens in a plasticky binding-y way while flour does it in a rock-brittle-plaster-y way, I dunno.

We liked that everyone could help make it and paint it.


And unlike the Hello Kitty pinata, we were not bound to the official licensed-character colors. The girls chose how they wanted to decorate the teapot and everyone got messy painting it.


On the day of the party, it got some good whacks. They were merciless.


Here's how much the kids liked it - they beat it to a pulp even when it was down and all the loot was plundered.


Hello Kitty lasted about three times as long, and expired more gracefully, but it's hard to tell if it was because it was a sturdier pinata or if the kids were a year older and a year stronger. The scientific side of me is seriously tempted to invite the same bunch of kids over each year to test out different pinatas, but it would be a flawed experiment from the start, since they'd keep getting better and better sluggers. Imagine the possibilities, though, and how much fun we'll have!

Busy Doing Who Knows What

Scrap fleece + puffy paint =

We had a birthday party this weekend.

Give us a couple of days to come back
to life and we'll have some photos!

P.S. Dishwasher died today. ????!!!!!!!!!!!!
Apparently, we are not having a very good year with our electric appliances.

Doing My Research - Winter Coats

Thank you everyone for your very useful suggestions and ideas in response to my questions in the last post about winter coats for my girls. I am always amused at how, after sewing for decades, I still don't know the names of fabrics. I am perfectly at home in a physical fabric shop where my fingers can help me discern thickness, content and texture, but in these online shopping places, I am useless.

So wool melton it is! I am eyeing the pink - but at $13 a yard, I am thinking I'd better at least sketch out my coat designs before pulling out my credit card.

When I first thought of sewing these coats some months back, I collected a couple of useful webpages with useful information on lining and interlining and, and of course can't find them now. But just quickly browsing in google a couple minutes ago I found one on interlining and an entire blog on coatsewing. I haven't read through either, but I will later in the fall when I start the whole coat process in earnest. And here is the link to the ehow article on making a pea coat, that Mom2TwoWonderfulKids (thank you!) shared in the previous comments.

Our winters here in the upper midwest get quite unkind - not uncommon to have minus 30 days and no feeling in our noses and ears for weeks on end. So most of the time we go around in unfashionable but very practical nylon ski jackets and unmatching thermal mittens. Still, for those occasional trips out when we actually wear something dressy, like when we go to church or a party, a proper wool outdoor coat would be nice. This is why I'm thinking so seriously about the thermal-lining aspect of these coats, I guess - can't play around with hypothermia.

Of course if I can find lovely pea coats in a store that fit the kids well, I am so buying them. I may sew and enjoy sewing, but I'm all about weighing time now. I'd rather buy something (unless it is exorbitant) than make it, if it means I get to use that time to actually be with the kids (shhhh.... and make cardboard stuff)!

Speaking of kids, someone small is right this minute at my elbow, asking for help to put rubber dresses on 4 plastic Prettyrellas (what the small someone calls all her plastic disney princess figurines) and one imposter Polly Pocket. So off I go!

Happy Day

Cardboard + Mass-production = Happy Day

Quick update:

1. Drafting series on hold for a week or two while Jen and I consolidate our ideas for the next few posts. Also on hold because of school-start and E's birthday prep.
2. Desperate to sew some school clothes for E after shopping and not buying as much as we'd like. Clothes-sewing also on hold till after the weekend.
3. Fridge devoid of cook-able food. Slowly getting our groove back after our houseguests left. Must hit the supermarket tomorrow.
4. Need to start thinking of wool coats to sew for the girls for winter. Have two questions - one, where to buy the nice almost-felt-like wool that pea coats are made of? I don't want to use wool suiting (which is all that JoAnn seems to have, bah) or fleece if I can help it. Two, what sort of insulation layer does one use between said wool and lining - is it fusible fleece, thinsulate or something else? If anyone knows, please share?