Wednesday Wonder: Shall We Tea Party in the Garden?

 

Hello beautiful Friends!

Happy mid-week to you. We are hurtling towards the weekend and August with such speed, aren't we? This summer has just flown. Between wet weather, muggy weather, and lots of smoke from the wildfires in Canada affecting our days...I feel we haven't nearly gotten enough checked off of our bucket list. 

I feel we're making the most of the lovely days we do get, and hopefully we'll have a lovely long warmer Fall to do more golfing, pontoon time, and outdoor activities. :) 

I'm planning to have some relatives/friends over for a brunch on the deck in the near future. And it got me thinking about tea parties. I've always thought it would be lovey to have a true tea party out amongst the flowers, birdsong, and shining bay. I have always loved the romance of the idea of a tea party. I've read and watched a lot of Jane Austen - maybe that's part of my fascination. Lol On the Queen Mary ship last year, one of my favorite things was the sort of high tea they did each day. A lovely hall, teapots of tea flowing, scones, cream & jam...and of course dainty sandwiches and treats all served. Break out your favorite set of pearls and you're in business! 😉 

I don't think I'll go full tea party for my brunch. Probably more like a quiche, a fruit salad, and scones. But I may try to decorate a bit with tea cups and little bouquets of flowers from the garden. Maybe even use some books & lace to add to the centerpiece for fun as well. 

But it got me thinking it would be fun to share some tea party ideas, as well as some pics from my garden lately and I've added little garden rhymes I've created....to fully immerse in garden party vibes. 🌸💚🍰☕️

(*all pics besides my own are photos & ideas from pinterest)

The lilies have been thriving this year! 

Hands in the dirt, heart full of grace,

the garden becomes a sacred place. 

For a garden tea party a tiered tray often works well and this is the rule of thumb for how the food would be served:

But first let's talk centerpiece ideas. Here are some lovely examples I found on pinterest. I love the idea of using teapots & teacups, lace, books, lots of flowers, photo frames, and pearls. 

More from my garden moments: I think even this sweet angel statue could be used as decoration. 💗

Petals whisper, soft & shy, 

a secret language to the sky.

Now to talk food. Of course tea sandwiches reign at a tea party. The obvious ones like cucumber with herbed cream cheese. Salad ones like chicken and egg salad area always a hit too. And I love little radish sandwiches with butter. I thought the little round BLT's below looked cute. And how sweet is the teddy bear sandwich cut from a cookie cutter? It said the filling was peanut butter and honey. With chocolate chip eyes. If you had little ones at your party wouldn't they love that? 

And I thought the little charcuterie in a teacup was sure clever! 

And scones are always a classic. They're often served with clotted cream - but I think butter is fine in a pinch too. Lemon curd would be fun! And don't forget a lovely jam as well. 😋 You can make scones from scratch - there are so many yummy recipes out there. Or you could get a boxed mix and make it easier on yourself. I love King Arthur company for mixes. I have this scone pan which makes it even easier to do homemade or boxed. I use this pan often and love it! I think I may have found it in a King Arthur catalog, but I don't remember?

It makes sweet little triangle scones so easy to do.

A seed so small, a hope so bright, 

It dreams in soil, then reaches light. 

And last, but not least, the best part. Dessert! There are SO many wonderful ideas for tiny little tea cakes and bite sized sweets on pinterest and other places. Shortbread is also a nice classic. I shared about the lilac shortbread (& the lilac sugar I made it with) that you can find if you click here.

How cute are these little chocolate covered teapot strawberries? And macarons are always SO good too! 

 I think if you served any dessert in little teacups it would be a home run as well. 

A final idea I had for a sweet treat relates to these little meringues I picked up at Trader Joes. I think pavlovas are so lovely as a dessert. You could make a sort of easy cheat on that idea and put some of these meringues at the base of a tea cup. Top with some stawberry sauce and fresh berries and a dollop of whipped cream on top. Wouldn't that be wonderful? 

I also think fairies added in could make your decor more of a magical tea ...especially an evening tea party would be perfect with fairies mixed in and decorate with pots of flowers with fairies in them. And pretty strings of lights up everywhere and candles glowing. 

I think you should let your imagination run wild with dreaming up lots of fun! 

Blessings and love always dear Friends

xoxo

5 Reasons to do a Back-to-School Tea

Hello my Dear Friends! 

I'm finally truly joining back into the blogging world after a bit of a break. I've enjoyed focusing more on my kiddos these past couple of weeks before school started, as well as just catching up on some of my life around here in general. 

I've missed doing regular posts and visiting with everyone though! I'm slowly catching up now. Although, I had read and appreciated all of your comments from my HHM check-ins when you sent them.  I hope you all know how much I love when you share a comment with me! I typically respond to all of them - but since I'm still catching up - I may only respond to the past couple of posts, or if you asked me a specific question.  

Okay, now on to today's fun!  5 Reasons to do a Back-to-School Tea!

ONE

It's an excuse to set a fun and pretty table! My daughter and I came up with the idea to have a fun back-to-school tea about a month ago. She invited one of her BFF's and we also invited Nana (my Mom) and Auntie Susie (my Aunt and Annie's great Aunt). One of the fun parts was thinking about how we wanted to set and decorate the table. We decided we liked the idea of stacks of books, pretty flowers (picked from our pots outside), candles and of course some apples! I even found an old apple Yankee Candle lamp that I had & it fit our theme perfectly. 

TWO

It's all about the fun food! We decided on a menu that included a variety of finger sandwiches (the biggest hits were white bread with whipped berry spread and strawberry slices, white bread with veggie spread and cucumber slices, and cheese bread with peanut butter - just like the crackers you buy in the store). We had salad on a stick with a variety of dressings. We also had fruit sushi that we ate with fun chopsticks! Just roll bananas in peanut butter and strawberries in hazelnut spread then roll in rice krispies and cut into bite size slices. We also had watermelon and kettle chips.  We washed it down with peach iced tea that we kept cold with frozen peaches in it for the ice cubes. ;) 

THREE

Of course one of the main reasons to do a tea like this is to gather! To laugh, tell stories, share, and dream on the school year ahead. The Girls were so excited to talk about what this new school year was going to bring for them! We had so much fun gabbing away and laughed a lot!!

FOUR

And what would a lovely tea be without DESSERT!?? We had French macaroon pastries that were fabulous (chocolate, vanilla, raspberry and pistachio flavors). It was so fun to use my Fall leaf serving dishes too. We also had semi-homemade s'mores ice cream. We softened some vanilla bean ice cream on the counter and added some marshmallows we had roasted in the oven & cut up - as well as bits of hershey bar chopped up, a swirl of hershey syrup, and broken up pieces of graham cracker. I mixed this all up in a bowl and then poured it into a 9x5 bread pan and put it in the freezer to re-freeze. It was SO GOOD and probably one of the biggest hits of the tea (along with the sushi and trying out chopsticks). You could taste those bits of roasted marshmallow in there. Just excellent and I recommend giving it a go sometime! 

FIVE

A final reason to have a tea like this is to continue to enjoy the glow beyond the tea time. I still have this as my dining room centerpiece at this moment and we continue to enjoy the pretty at sunset each night.  A beautiful reminder of such a fun day.

I'm sharing this with Amy at Love Made My Home for Five on Friday. And with Andrea at Scrapality for Scraptastic Saturday.