Princess Birthday Tea

As the girl child's birthday party approaches, I thought it an appropriate time for a visit from the ghost of birthday parties past. Last year, we hosted a Princess Tea Party for my step-daugther's eighth birthday.



For the The Invitation:

I used Microsoft Word to format the wording and print the text for the invitation using a royal looking font. I also used a crown clip art image. I printed these out on regular paper and then aged them by painting them with coffee and laying them on the kitchen table to dry. This caused them to get wrinkly, crinkly and brown (and to smell very good). I then cut the text to fit on a half sheet of card stock in a parchment looking color. I folded the cardstock in half and glued the invite text inside. For the front of the card, I cut out and aged the crown design, glued this down and used jewel stickers from the dollar store to embellish.

The food

• Since there were so many goodies, we skipped the cake and opted instead for cupcakes arranged on a pretty cake stand.
• Chocolate covered strawberries
• Peanut butter cracker sandwiches
• Ham and cheese roll ups
• Hot cocoa and warm cider were made ahead of time and kept in some pretty coffee carafes.
• PB&J, tuna salad and chicken salad sandwiches were made and then cut into heart and flower shapes using cookie cutters.
  
  

Decorations

• We made place cards for each of the girls by writing their names (using non-toxic gold markers) on a green apple and setting it on their plate.

• The table was strewn with curled streamers and gold wrapped chocolate coins.

• We used real table linens and china for an authentic touch.
  

The princess opening her gifts.


The Games

• We made a prize basket containing one prize for each game (plus one extra just in case). These prizes came from the $ store and my gift closet. The winner of each game drew a prize from the basket with their eyes closed.
• Princess Mix Up – This one is played like Telephone. The birthday princess was trying to get a message to the queen. We didn’t give out a prize for this game, but it was a lot of fun.
• Ladies Relay – We had the girls split into teams and relay raced balancing books on their heads. If they dropped their book they had to start over.
• Royal Pictionary – We used a whiteboard and markers and had the girls draw clues for all to guess. We used royal words, such as, crown, prince, knight, etc.
• Pin the kiss on the frog – My talented husband drew a frog onto green poster board and I cut lips from red paper. I wrote each girls name on the lips ahead of time. We gave the girls tape for the back of their lips, blindfolded and spun them around a la pin the tail on the donkey.

• Poison apple – The girls sit in a circle on the floor and when the music begins they pass around the Poison Apple. When the music stops whoever has the apple falls asleep. We continued to play until there was only one girl left and she was the winner.
  

This party really was a lot of fun. When the girls arrived they were greeted at the door by the servant (my husband). He welcomed them, took their coats and showed them into the back room where he announced them as Princess So and So. We printed out some princess coloring book pages ahead of time put them on the table with a bucket of crayons to occupy the girls who arrived early. Once all the girls had arrived, the servant announced that the tea was to be served in the royal dining room. I (the queen) ate at the table with the girls and we were waited on by the servant. This was a lot fun too and we even used a little glass bell to summon the servant. Partway through tea, we were entertained by the jester (my step-son) who told some royal themed jokes. After tea we went into the living room and played a few games. Then we had a special throne for the birthday girl to sit in as she opened her gifts.