VICTORIANA LADY

Welcome to the local annual spring tea where our ladies tea society attended.

Some background about the tea. It's been hosted for over 20 years with 27 hostesses this year, and 8 guests at a table.

Each hostess is responsible for her table theme, favors & refreshments. The church provides the sandwiches which were quite varied and delicious.

My menu included Butterscotch Scones that read Eat Me, written in frosting, brownie petit squares with white chocolate chips, &
assorted Petit Fours.

My specialty was my home made hat cake. (See my Recipes page
for how to make one). I frosted it with white icing, used tiny purple,
pink & yellow spring flowers along the one side of the brim. I finished
 it off with a purple organza ribbon and a pretty silk butterfly coming
out of the other side.

I started with a bright yellow tablecloth. Over that a lovely white lace one. For the centerpiece imagine two large stacked pedestal crystal
cake plates, on top of each other, loaded with  Petit Fours, brownies,
& red silk rosebuds.

In the center of the top cake plate I placed an heirloom cut crystal vase filled with red & white velvet roses.
(If you remember in the story the Queen was upset that the roses were white and she ordered them to be painted red.) 
Clear crystal beaded servers held the scones & tea sandwiches. Next to the Petit Fours was a Limoge roses tea pot.

Our serving plates were pink with flowers & butterflies on them. I used two matching patterns of Chintz tea cups. Throughout the table I added whimsical touches from the story; clear mini glass bottles with tags saying, Drink Me, a large stuffed Victorian looking rabbit, mini tea
cups, a large hat in the style of the Mad Hatter's hat, and Queen of Hearts playing cards.

The favors were miniature tea pots and bookmarks with a picture of Alice holding a Drink Me bottle.

For the chair backs, white lace ribbon tied in a bow. I have collected colorful, whimsical hats over the years and pinned a hat onto each
chair bow. Eveyone at the social loved our table!

The tea was done by candlelight which adds a warm glow.
It was fun visiting the other tea tables, the ladies are so creative.
We can't wait for next year's tea!

Pleasure of Tea and Friends

Our Tea Party Table

The first meeting of the Pleasure of Tea and Friendship Society gathered March 24, 2002 at my home. 
A Queen Anne Victorian home circa 1870 filled with family heirlooms. One woman said, It was like stepping back in time!  Our tea was titled Beat the Winter Doldrums.

I had been planning my ideas and getting my house ready since January.  Each lady was sent an invitation I made with a teapot and teacup stamped on the front with matching envelopes. In it I wrote, I invite you to join a Tea Society with me. Our Tea Society will be called The Pleasure of Tea and Friendship. I request the honor of your company. I realize that you are very busy and your time is precious to you, mine is too. Won't you consider investing an hour or two in yourself? I would love if you could join us! Every woman needs a little break and pampering now and then! Please R.S.V.P. I am looking forward to seeing you!

Sixteen responded yes.  To make some new friends, I invited several moms I have met at school functions that I found love tea and Victorian things. I am looking forward to getting to know them better. To strengthen my existing friendships I not only included friends that I see on a regular basis but ladies I haven't seen in awhile. We were hugging each other as they came through the door.  I absolutely get the greatest joy out of having people over.  I love to make people feel special.

I chose a spring theme for our tea and had fresh and silk spring flower arrangements throughout the house. When the ladies arrived, they were greeted by a basket of silk spring flowers hanging on my front door, which I made like a May basket.

We began our meeting with introductions. I asked each lady to say her name, town where she was from and tell us a favorite hobby. Then we played a little icebreaker game to get the ladies to learn about each other. They wrote five little known facts about themselves on index cards. I read the facts aloud and we had to try to guess who it was! I was a lot of fun.

Next, we played a game where I awarded the winner an antique pin. I
 They were asked to write down how many types of flavored teas they could think of. I told them we would see who the real serious tea drinkers were! The ladies really enjoyed the games, they put everyone at ease.

Afterwards, we had our refreshments. Several women brought their favorite dessert, which included petits fours, sweet breads, tea cookies, and fresh strawberry pie with whipped cream. I served several flavored teas, Chai being the favorite.

I made chocolate walnut fudge and homemade chocolate truffles, the mint chocolate was a favorite. I also made strawberry swirl cheesecake. The ladies' other favorite was the cream cheese mints, which I put in molds shaped like teapots and teacups. I found the molds in a store that sells candy-making supplies. (I plan to use the molds to make chocolate teapot/teacup lollipops for a Mother-Daughter tea for my oldest daughter).

I have several old china sets that I mixed and matched for the place settings that belonged to my great-grandmother. (She would have enjoyed the tea party, she taught me to appreciate tea when I was just a little girl!) A vase of fresh daffodils was our centerpiece.

A heart sticker was placed under one of the tea saucers to win the door prize, a copy of Emilie Barnes' book, If Teacups Could Talk.  My friend who won just started a little cottage bakery business and she was thrilled to see all of the wonderful recipes and ideas. 

  I also used teapot cookie cutters to cut out teapot shapes from wallpaper sample books to make place setitng favors. I glued magnets on the back of these and personalized each one with each lady's name. An inexpensive rememberance of our party.

We had such a wonderful time that the ladies did not want to leave. The tea society is a perfect way for me to extend hospitality and make my friends feel special while giving them a break. Most of us have several young children so it is a precious treat for all of us.

 One of my friends e-mailed me after the party and said,
I can't remember when I had such a good time connecting with other women, thank you so much for all the work and effort you put into doing the whole tea party. I look forward to our next tea! It was such a blessing and it really boosted by spirits. It made me realize how much I miss taking the time to do things that are important to me. Thank you again!

This letter really encouraged me. I never imagined a tea social would appeal to so many, but I am happy that my friends just love the whole idea.

For some of the recipes from our tea , click on my RECIPES page.

The Pleasure of Tea and Friendship Society's  Blueberry Tea

Menu:
Blueberry Green Tea
Blueberry Bread
Cream Cheese filled Tea Sandwiches with Blueberry Jelly
Blueberry Buckle Cake
Blueberry Custard Creme Pie
Blueberry Muffins
Assorted Berry Ambrosia

The table setting was a white tablecloth with white scalloped lace over the top and dishes of Blue Willow I inherited from my great aunt. The centerpiece was my great-great-grandmother's white ironstone pedestal cake plate. On it I placed a wreath of blue silk hydrangea flowers accented with little blueberries. In the center of the wreath was a dark blue pillar candle. I found little blue and white tea cups and saucers at a craft store. A blueberry votive candle was placed in each cup. 
 The favors were bonbons and small chocolate candies wrapped in white tulle tied with blue ribbon.

For the door prize I found a lovely matching teacup, saucer and dessert plate at a second hand store. I put several tea bags in the cup, added a teapot magnet and wrapped them in pink cellophane tied with ribbon. For the presentation of the gift I chose to write a little newsletter with tea hints on it. One of the copies had a word in lower case while all the others were in capital letters. I passed these out randomly. The person who had the error on their paper won the gift. I thought this was a different way to pick a winner, more interesting that picking a name out of a hat!

Everyone sat around the dining room table after dessert, sipping tea and talking - no one wanted to leave! This tea seemed like it was over too quickly! It was a wonderful two hours of peace and tranquility.