Emily Simpson

My daughter Addelyn loves having tea parties for her dolls and friends when they came over. For her birthday, we wanted to do something extra special and fitting for the elegant little girl she is. Vintage Tea PartyEvery weekend for a few months, we went to thrift stores and picked up vintage tea cups and serving platters. She had a blast getting involved and being apart of the planning. I designed the invitations using stock art I purchased from Etsy and I cut out the invites in the shape of a tea bag.
We set up a fairy wand station so that when all the girls arrived, they first made their wands and then sat down for the party. During the party, my husband put on a suit and acted as the server, individually serving the girls finger sandwiches and tea. On each saucer, we placed pink sugar cubes in the shape of teapots (we found them at Home goods for $4!) I also had bowls of sugar cubes on the table that I adorned with heart shaped sprinkles found at Michaels. After they ate, we played Pin the Teacup on the Saucer. I used a floral poster board from Hobby Lobby and cut out a teapot using card stock. I then glued doilies around the poster to act as tea cup saucers. We blindfolded each girl one by one and they had to try placing a cutout of a teacup on one of the doilies. The girls loved this game and wanted to play it multiple times! We also printed out teacup and teapot clip art for each place setting for the girls to color on. Most of the plates and decorative items came from Amazon. For added fun, we set up a “photobooth” using a backdrop from Michael’s wedding section and I cut out different fun shapes on card stock for props.
As the girls left the party, we handed out teapot shaped boxes filled with cookies along with individually wrapped teacup shaped lollipops. These aren’t pictured but I’ve included links.
For the menu, we opted to keep the sandwiches very simple. The sandwich options included turkey with cheese, ham, chocolate spread with marshmallow cream, and raspberry preserve. We also served cheese cubes and fruit with a variety of sweet treats including cupcakes, rice krispies dipped in pink chocolate, and a fabulous ombre cake!
 
 

We recently moved to Atlanta from Memphis and we are having to rent a home for the time being. I put Addelyn’s room together doing the best I could without having the ability to paint or do major projects. We already owned the entire Pottery Barn Kitchen set so it was important that I found a way to incorporate all that pastel pink when considering the theme for Addelyn’s new room. We wanted her room to be a space that she could grow in to, while remaining sweet and youthful.

Addelyn’s birthday being so close to Christmas brings a lot of challenges! We wanted to pick a theme that was special to her birthday, not Christmassy, but still incorporating winter.  We thought adding  lots of silver and white with pops of pink, would give it that classic look without being over the top princess.

Since our sweet Addelyn has to share her birthday with the holiday season we wanted a theme that was still colorful and festive but not CHRISTMAS! I know that rainbow parties are all the craze these days but I figured a first birthday with a color theme would be the most appropriate. We had tons of fun with it.

Decorating the nursery