Lovely Witches at the Witches' Tea Party

The week of Halloween has arrived, and what better way to welcome it than with a witches' tea party!!  These are four of the fourteen wonderful witches who came to share the fun!

 The tables are set ...

The chicken and cream cheese rolls have on their best smiles ...

Upside down witch cupcakes are all ready (compliments of my friend LaVern) for the dessert course ... and my friend Carolyn brought some fun witches' finger bread sticks, which I didn't get a picture of before they were utterly consumed!

The Halloween lights are on and shining brightly ...

 So let the witching hour begin!  Left to right are Ann, Ginny, Andrea, LaVern, Cristie, Adrienne, Margaret, Shirley, Carolyn and Patti!  

After the tea it was crafty time.  Our craft was sort of like our girlhood occupations of dressing our Barbies from Mom's scrap basket ... but in this case it was actually ....

skeletons, who had been 'chilled to the bone', so we set out to dress them, if not warmly, at least festively ... here are three of the finished darlings.

Patti's was the one in the middle.

More festive spooks .... the one on the left was made by my granddaughter Eva ... (without help)

Margaret shows off her handy work.

Eva and Margaret's skeleton friends posed again, to keep the third skeleton company.

 Three more models posing, only these models are not of the 'skin and bones' variety, just the bones.

... and then its time for those parting shots.

Loved the colorful costume that Terri wore ... in fact I loved it so much she won the award for the best witch costume.  I also Loved my friend Ginny's 'Doctor Trelawney'. 

Here are my two cute daughter, Ashley and Darby, along with Eva, showing off their bewitching nails ...

 ... and here is Adrienne, who helped everyone add some spooky glam to their hands, as my favorite Jamberry consultant.

I didn't get a picture of anyone's 'jams', so I thought I would share this picture of mine from a couple of weeks ago!  Can you tell I love Jamberry?!    If you want to have fun too, you can check out her  web page. 

 Margaret won the best shoes award ...

... and here I am with my favorite little witch .... Eva loves to dress up as much as I do ... and she loves crafting too, so how could I not include her at my favorite party of the year!!

... and just because I know Shirley might actually read this blog post I thought I would share the adorable pennant she brought for me!!  I LOVE it!  There were more goodies too, but the very best part of a witches party is always gathering with like minded ladies who love to have fun!!

Happy Halloween to all, and to all a spooky goodnight!

Mad Hatter's Tea Party

Our Mad Hatter's Tea Party was a grand success.  Everyone brought some finger food, old traditional foods for tea, like toast, cream puffs, clotted cream, marmalade, cucumber sandwiches and lemon curd.  

 Here are the girls at the tea cart, everyone but Alice wore a minimal costume, tiny crowns for the queens, rabbit ears, a top hat or spinning top beanies .  

 The sun was bright and very hot ... but I had opted for my side lawn instead of my shady front yard, just so we could eat by the garden house, it seems so whimsical to me.

Love this picture of the white queen licking her pinkies.  She's adorable!!

 As a service group, we always start our luncheon days with a couple of hours of charity work.  This time, we made ornaments for the Alice in Wonderland Christmas tree we are doing for the Primary Children's hospital fund raiser, The Festival of Trees.

The 'drink me' bottles were fun to make, and we finished several.

We also got lots and lots of fan folded paper done, to frame the red tart tins with the paper clocks in the middle.  Next month will be another work day for our tree.  We really managed to get into the mood of Alice in Wonderland with our Mad Hatter's Tea.  This may be our favorite Christmas Tree so far!! (It will be our fourth)

I know, it just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser!!

Edenbrooke Book Club Tea Party

Tea Parties and book clubs (I belong to three) ... are two of my favorite things, and clearly I can not get enough of either ... Tea parties I have held ...

Jane Austen Birthday Tea for the Jane Austen Society of Utah

Witches Tea Party

Mad Hatter's out of doors Tea Party

Downton Abbey Tea Party and Geneva Heights Eighth Ward Reunion

Private Tea to celebrate Price William's Wedding with my friend Stacy (No Prince William did not actually marry Stacy, but I'm not sure she would have minded if he had.

Grandchildren's Tea Party

... and a few misc assorted, non themed tea parties ...

 So for this tea party, our first to arrive is our own glamorous Shanna, our book club leader.  

She was later joined by Ginny and Lori ... yes our book club is very intimate in size, and two other regular attendees, sadly had conflicts. Missed you Lindsey and Alison!

 Above is our tea table, and to the right is out toast station, including marmalade, clotted cream and lemon curd ... yum.

Eating cold toast, Brit style is just different ... but delicious with the accouterments.

Of course cucumbers sandwiches are a must for any tea menu.  I have always made them with just butter and cucumber, with maybe a tiny slice of red onion, like the ones I was served at a tea house in Brighton, UK ...

This time, however, I found a recipe on line for Lemon Dill Cucumber Sandwiches, that I am in love with.  You can find the recipe here.

We read Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson, and we all loved it, except for Lori, who had to read it a second time to fall in love with it ... so really how much could she have disliked it, if she read it again?  Yes, this book is very Austenish ... which I love, her next book, which three of us have already read, Blackmoore is definitely written by Donaldson as a Bronte soul sister ...

 .. and during the discussion of the book, if a question arises ... the total wealth of human knowledge is just one pink ipad away!!

You all come back now, hear?

Downton Abbey Tea Party and Pennant Banner

 Welcome to my Downton Abbey Tea Party in honor of my friend Jenn who was visiting from Virginia ...

This is the 'help', my 'parlor maid' Becca, and my 'butler', Perkins.

The Menu

Crumpets with Clotted Cream, Marmalade and Lemon Curd

Chicken Salad Puffs

Ribbon Sandwiches

Various herb and fruit teas

Assorted 'biscuits'

 

Jenn, Ann and Robin got into the mood by dressing the part.

 

 

 I tried to get everyone in the mood with a few English touches.  I made the Downton Abbey banner in about an hour.  Since I often spend hours and hours doing them, I was very happy with this quickie effort.

 

Instead of carefully taping antique book pages to sheets of printer paper, and sending them through my printer, one at a time to receive either a medallion, a letter or both ...  I just found this great handwriting sample on Graphics Fairy, and printed off a trimmed version 2 to a page on card stock, cut them out, then punched the borders, and stamped a letter on each before gluing them onto a length of black garland and voila!

 Michelle was also, luckily, in town from Arizona, and is shown here with Jenn and her mother Doreen to the right.

 

Here are Robin, Barb and Ann, all longtime friends.

 Other decorating touches were to add a Lady Grantham plaque to an antique portrait, as well as printing off a picture of Lady Mary in her wedding dress and hanging it.

I already have a few tributes to our friends across the pond, like this lamp.  I also have Busts of British Royalty, a few crowns and a lovely antique book with Queen Elizabeth's portrait on the cover.

Now we just have to wait for the new season to arrive so I can watch it on my 'big' screen TV ... although I must admit that I have already cheated and watched the first episode on line ... thanks Stacy!