Mama, What's For Tea Today?

Sometime during this last year, my children have all developed at least one hollow leg each. Up until recently, one snack a day had been plenty, but now they are suddenly starving ALL THE TIME! My friend mentioned that she would like to start having tea with her kids occasionally and I thought, "How fun would THAT be"?! So, I decided that we would have tea every day at 2:00. Then I realized that Taylor had an online class at 2:00 and so she would miss having tea with us. So I moved it to 3:00.


My first thought was to just use our everyday tea cups and saucers, they are pretty white porcelain with hob nails around the top, but my oldest daughter (the bossy one) thought that we NEEDED to use my china for tea. I told her that if she wanted to use it that she would have to get it out of the hutch and wash it all by hand before and after tea. I thought that with 6 of us drinking tea, plus the dessert plates that she would opt to use the dishes that, 1). were already clean and 2). could go in the dishwasher.

WRONG. She pulled out all the cups and saucers and plates and began washing them.

Now remember, this idea for tea was a last minute thing, what I was going to serve to EAT with tea, I had no clue. After scrounging around for a bit I came up with Toasted Tortillas with Cinnamon and Sugar. Not my favorite, but the kids love them.

We didn't sit down at the dining room table for a formal tea this first time; we just sat at the bar in the kitchen. That didn't seem to bother the kids at all. They just loved that they got to eat fancy food and use the fancy dishes.

After we got everything all cleaned up and put away, I had to wonder if we would really keep up with this on a daily basis. For Tea Time, day two, I actually had a plan for treats; chocolate snack cake and poppy seed bread and THIS time we did sit down at the table. About two days later, I had to run a few errands and knew I was going to be gone at Tea Time. I thought for sure, that the kids will decide to just grab a granola bar and continue along with their day. WRONG, AGAIN. Taylor and Meghan worked together to put tea out for everyone.

Tea Time is an evolving event. It's now been moved to 11:00 and while Tay does have an online class then as well, it's only one day a week and she takes her tea to her room. Sometimes we sit at the dining room table and use the china, but a lot of the time we drink our tea at the bar out of our everyday cups. Really, it's just about being together.

Taste Tea

Our church held a Gourmet Potato Bar Fundraiser to benefit our Women's Ministry last Saturday, where they raffled off different items that had been donated. I told the coordinator that I would love to do a Tea Basket, if she was interested, filled with some homemade goodies. She said yes, and so I spent Friday and Saturday creating a basket filled with tea, scones and love. What I pictured in my head, turned out to be way better in reality. I LOVE it when that happens.

This post will be pretty long, because there are a ton of pictures. Go make yourself a cup of tea, grab a cozy chair and get comfy.

I used a yellow, brown and white color scheme that just seemed to say RELAX. I picked up these cute little containers quite a while back at our local Dollar Store. They came in packs of three and because the Dollar Store was running a promotion on Tuesdays, they were only $0.88 a pack. You get can't better deals than that. I bought something like 5 packages. Now I wish I had bought more! I filled each little jar with loose leaf tea from a cooking store downtown. I spilled them all over my crafting table, but it smelled divine as I worked!

I used my scallop circle punch and the Pocket Silhouette stamp from Stampin' Up to create all my tags.

I found these cute containers at Wal-Mart and bought a bunch to organize my spice/baking cupboard. Isn't it SO great filled with the Strawberry Freezer Jam?

The Shortbread Cookies were one of the first baked goodies I packaged up and they set the stage for everything else.

The ribbon going around the cellophane bag was the perfect touch!

Next were the Mini British Scones. I mistakenly wrote ENGLISH scones on the package, but who cares? They still taste delish! I have been making the scones for our daily tea time, but decided to make these bite size. They are the perfect size to smear on a bit of jam and then pop them in your mouth. They have a little bit of a crunch to them because before you bake them, you top them with some sugar in the raw.

I had never had Irish Soda Bread before, but have wanted to try it for years. I watched Ina Garten make this recipe on her T.V. show The Barefoot Contessa. It seemed so simple, I had to try it! It's to die for yummy. I think it looks sort of French tied with the knot and the label off to the right.

The last baked goodie that I added to the basket, were the first scones I ever learned how to bake and the ones I have been asked to make for the last 4 or 5 ladies teas at our church. They are a Whole Wheat Scone from the Taste of Home series of recipes. My stamping friend Shalyn gave me the recipe to try and every time I make it I think of her.  My friend, Lark, suggested the brown paper bag for packaging.  Can I just say, "genius"?

My mind often comes up with ideas that I really don't have time for.  While I was gathering things for the basket I had the idea to make a little book with some different facts about tea and a few recipes. I titled it Taste Tea...do you get it? No? Say it out loud, "Taste Tea", ahhh, see? Tasty! He-he-he, it took my family a little while too, and they were not nearly as impressed as I was. *sigh*, oh well.

In my opinion, this book is what sent this basket over the top. It turned out fabulous! I've never made anything like this before so I was a little nervous. My husband got me a Zutter Binding Machine for Christmas and it came with this huge stack of Chipboard Coasters. I had no idea what to do with them, but they seemed perfect for this project. Now I'm pretty sure I will find ALL sorts of uses for them.

When I put everything together and got it all arranged in the basket, I almost called and told Kim that I changed my mind. It was TOO adorable to give away! I did fill the Lemon Curd jar, but not until right before I left to take the basket to the church, by then I was done taking pictures. I'm sure you can picture the jar filled, it was yellow, and it was pretty!

  

I was so glad to hear that my friends the Graff family won the basket. They are another family with a passion for tea parties and all things pretty and yummy. From their Facebook posts, it sounds like it was much enjoyed! Mom and Oldest Daughter each have blogs for you to enjoy.

Creating gifts like this, is my absolute FAVORITE thing to do with all my paper and ink.  This makes me SUPER happy!

NOTE:  I rearrange the pictures in this post because I noticed some were stacked under others.