The Mad Hatters Tea Party

On the 16th of August, my little sister Leigh turned 8 and to celebrate the occasion, my mum and I threw her a tea party! I had literally been planning for weeks in advance, and spent so much time rummaging around in charity shops and car boot sales for tea sets. I was also on a really tiny budget as we were renting a church hall which cost a small fortune in itself, but it was all worth it in the end! I took some inspiration from Pinterest and also kind of made things up as I went along depending on what I found in stores. Almost everything that I got for the table was from Poundland, aside from the tea sets, tea pots and plates which I sourced from charity shops.

 As the guest list was mostly made up of 6-8 year olds, I made an effort to have a variety of fruit and vegetables for them to eat. I made fruit kebabs from red and green grapes, strawberries and oranges, plus sliced some cucumber and served them with low-fat mayo. I also reserved a few of the strawberries and oranges and dipped them in melted chocolate for a special little treat!

 To make the sandwiches a little more visually appealing, I used cookie cutters to cut them into cute shapes. I used a variety of heart and flower cutters in different sizes to try and get the most out of the bread. Nothing went to waste, though as we gave the crusts to our chickens (damp) and we ate the rest! I filled the sandwiches with either cheese spread, Nutella or ham (my mum did the ham ones)

 The general colour theme of the tea party was pastels. Most of the tea sets I bought were either blue, yellow, pink or floral. I got three plastic table cloths from Poundland, two pink polka dot and one blue check. The napkins were also from Poundland, and either had pink polka dots, blue check or little cupcakes on them. I also placed four different tea cups along the table, two of them filled with blackcurrant squash and two filled with orange squash. The kids had so much fun pouring their drinks into their tea cups using the tea pots!

The party bags were actually canvas bags, kindly given to us by my mum's friend. We decorated the bags with each of the guest's names and filled them with a lip balm, some sweets and some glow sticks. Also, at the end of the party, we stuck in a different prop from the photo booth. We also had a ton of little prizes for the party games, which we picked up over the past few weeks in the sales and in Poundland. For example, we got a variety of hair bands, cute kids jewellery from Primark and some back-to-school stationery.

[My other sister Chelsea, Leigh, Me. My hat and dress are from Primark]

 

For the photo booth, we bought a framed photo from a charity shop for £3 and I painted it with a variety of pastel acrylic paint. We basically found a blank bit of wall, got the guests to 'frame' themselves and I took the photos! We also had a prop bag, full of random hats and feather boas etc. The photos are such cute souvenirs for all of my sister's friends and family and it was SO cheap to do. I think in total it must have cost us about £10, including all of the props and the frame itself.

I hope that you liked this post! It was such a fun day, and I ate lots of amazing food. I also hope that it proves that you can have a super cute tea party on a tiny budget.

 

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