Tea Party Baby Shower

by Susan Croy
(Indian Rocks Beach, Fl)

It was the first Tea Party my sister in law and I have ever hosted and the first Baby Shower. I actually made the Tea Party the theme. I order printed invitation shaped like a tea cup in pink (baby girl) and other pastel colors.

We had 35 guests and had invited 40 so I had to do some borrowing. My niece and her mother in law loaned me their cups, saucers and dessert plates. I borrowed outdoor canopies. There were two green canopies and two whites which I thought would bother me but made no difference at all. I had one 6ft. rectangle table, and one 36" round, we borrowed 2 more 6 ft. tables and one large round that would seat 8 or 10 and two 8 ft. buffet tables, whew!!!! Since we were on a budget, I used all my pretty tea pots as centerpieces and filled them with pink and yellow silk flowers decorated with pink polka dot ribbon. They were just beautiful; I couldn't believe how cute they were. I also made about 50 tissue paper pompoms and hung them under the canopies. I found table cloths on sale at a Party Store for $4.00 each and scooped them up. I used 4 of mine and two borrowed yellow ones. A few trips to the various thrift stores netted me about 40 cloth napkins in white, yellow and pink. Little white favor boxes topped with small bright pink silk flowers and bright green ribbon and a pink thank you tag completed our table arrangements. We only used knives and spoons.

We gave a gift for a drawing for those who brought diapers and one for the accurate count of the M&M's.

But, the best was decorating the hats. I had purchased 40 plain, inexpensive wide brimmed straw hats and set out all my ribbon and left over silk flowers, all sizes... packages of glue dots, three glue guns and 5 pairs of scissors for the guest to go wild. Some did and some didn't, but it was a great conversation starter and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Unfortunately I am stuck with about 15 pretty badly decorated straw hats.

We had placed the tea bags on the saucer and after the guest served themselves at the buffet, my co hostess and I filed each cup with hot water from thermos carafes.... Each table had a sugar and creamer. I wasn't sure if that was even permissible but there were so many people that it seems like the best solution for us, none of us knows anything about tea parties. We also served Lemonade and water and I painted some empty wine jugs in our colors and made white sangria for sipping while the gifts were open. I know, Sangria at a Tea Party, it felt like a sacrilege but I had to give in to the pressure. I haven't down loaded the photos yet, I hope I can come back and add a photo.

The tea party baby shower was fun, a lot of work went into it though. The little mother to be received so many, extremely nice gifts that I was glad we were able to do something nice for our guest.