Invitations

To get things off on the right foot, send each guest a tea party invitation at least two weeks in advance to give your gal pals ample notice and ask them to RSVP. Naturally, you’ll want to make sure you include the date, time, location, and attire. If you’re feeling crafty and it fits the mood of the event, you can make your invitations look like tea pots or garden hats. The most popular color schemes are pastel or light colors. You’ll also want to consider seating arrangements as you’re determining the number of ladies to invite.

Selecting the Perfect Tea

You want to serve hot tea of course, but which type of tea do you select for a tea party? If you’re worried about everyone’s preferences, you can have a tea sampler pack from Golden Moon Tea, which allows your guests to choose the type of tea they like. If you want to stay traditional, the most common tea to serve is an English tea or earl grey. Don’t forget the milk and honey!

For those guests that don’t prefer tea, you can also serve lemonade or infused water. Infused water has become a go to item in many cafes and water can be infused with anything from strawberries to mint.

Proper Clothing

You should be dressed to impress at a tea party: sundresses, garden hats, heels and fine accessories. If you want, you can even wear white gloves. Just don’t go too over the top, you don’t want to look like you’re going for a night on the town.

Don’t Forget the Foods

If you want to throw a tea party like the royals, don’t forget about the delectable snacks! Pair that delicious and healthy cup of tea with scones, desserts and sandwiches.

Tea sandwiches: These light and dainty sandwiches are so simple to make but look so elegant. Real Simple explains how to make the perfect Cucumber Tea sandwich.

Ingredients:

2 English seedless cucumbers, ends trimmed

12 slices sandwich bread

6 ounces whipped cream cheese

1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh dill

Directions:

- Cut each cucumber crosswise into 4 equal pieces. Thinly slice each cucumber piece lengthwise into strips.

- Place the bread slices (white bread is recommended) on a work surface and spread a thin layer of cream cheese onto each slice.

- Divide the cucumber and dill evenly among six of the slices.

- Top with the remaining bread. Trim crusts and cut into quarters.

Creating the Ambience

Place all your sandwiches, scones and desserts on a tiered plate stand (or two). If you don’t have a tiered plate stand, it’s easy to make with a few pieces: a collection of three plates, different sizes and two glass candle sticks. Glue a candle stick in between two plates, let dry and repeat one more time, making a tower.

The best place to have a tea party is in a garden, but if that’s not possible just create a garden-inspired party in your dining or living room with shrubbery, moss covered accessories and circle tables. You should decorate the table (or tables) with a fine, white linen table cloth or lace and adorn it with a nice floral centerpiece. Make sure every table setting has a tea cup, saucer, napkin and silverware.

After the event has come and gone, be sure to send a thank you note to your guests. Even in our modern world of text messaging and Facebook, a sincere hand-written message of thanks is always appreciated. If you really want to finish things off in style, use tea pot and cup stationery to keep the theme consistent. Good luck with your party!

The post Get the Girls Together and Throw an Unforgettable Tea Party appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.

Think Theme

In many ways, a pool party is already a theme itself, but you can get even more creative to make your bash especially unique. Throw a Jamaican-themed party with steel drum marimba music and lots of Bob Marley; or a Brazilian bash Rio de Janeiro style, complete with cultural food, music and décor. If you are hosting mainly kids, make a splash with a Hawaiian luau theme using beach balls and bright colors.

Your party doesn’t have to be expensive or exploding with decorations, but a good theme will give you a starting place for invitation design and food selection.

Hire a Lifeguard

Before your guests arrive, consider what safety measures you are going to take to prevent injuries. A fence, alarm system or pool cover at In The Swim can help keep guests safe before and after the party, but what about during? Decide on a pool supervisor schedule. Ask adult guests attending the party if they are willing to act as life guard sometime throughout the night. Have an assigned adult watching the pool at all times. Consider using a water watcher tag so they’ll remember they are the one with the assigned pool-watching responsibility at the time. If they need to run to the bathroom or grab a drink, they can hand the responsibility to someone else.

If you are hosting a large party and don’t want to worry about assigning guests to water-watching duty, hire a couple of lifeguards by contacting your local lifeguard association or YMCA. Or you could pay two or three responsible teenagers in your neighborhood to come over and lifeguard for the night. Make sure they know CPR and have the right certification before offering them the job.

Food and Drink Frenzy

Your food selection may depend on your theme, or you might just want to have an assortment of easy, tasty, fuss-free items. Whatever the night’s menu is, you don’t want to be tied up tending to the food all night. Before hand, set up a beverage station with lemonade, water and soft drinks for your guests to choose from. Have a table with previously prepared mini salads, fruit cups, finger sandwiches and maybe even a snow cone machine for guests to snack on at their leisure.

Sometime toward the end of the party, guests are going to get really hungry. If you are planning on the typical pool side barbecue, consider your non-meat eating guests and have more options than just hamburgers and hot dogs. Or order pizza and have it set to arrive an hour or two after the party begins.

Discuss Safety

Most of the time, guests won’t arrive at the same time. In order to establish safety rules that everyone is aware of, include them on the back of your invitation. To help monitor the children in the pool area, limit everyone to a single point of entry. Make sure your guests with children know what flotation devices you have available and what they are expected to bring.

Keep rescue equipment and a phone nearby, and have a plan of action in case an accident does occur. Who will make the emergency call, drive to the hospital or lock up the pool area in the event something happens? Make the decisions and share them with your adult guests.

Play Games

A pool party doesn’t necessarily need planned games, but having a few up your sleeve may prove useful if kids get restless or the party hits a plateau. Most pool games can be adapted to whatever age group you are catering too, meaning they can be equally fun for kids and adults.

There’s nothing like a good belly flop contest to bring everyone together. Line up your contestants, find a prize for the winner and have the audience judge by applause. Other game options include playing F-I-S-H, the pool equivalent to basketball’s H-O-R-S-E, except players do pool stunts (like flips and swan dives) and try to copy each other. This can be potentially dangerous, so make sure to establish rules before playing. Also, diving for glow sticks or toothpicks can be fun to do and hilarious to watch.

With these tips and your creative style, you can easily host a fun, safe pool party for children and their parents.

The post Pool Party Plans: 5 Tips for a Safe, Fun Time appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.

1. For smaller kids, you don’t need a large pool anyway. Our own Amy Adele production manager, Whitney, just threw a pool party for daughter Clara who turned 4. Whitney bought a couple of small wading pools for $8 each. The guests could jump from pool to pool and still make quite a big splash. An hour before the party, Dad David and Grandpa Tom assembled an easy, run-thru sprinkler out of PVC pipe. Whitney added a slip-n-slide, another sprinkler, some $1 water shooters, a slide, a bubble machine, some tunes and the garden hose. She even used an idea from our blog post last summer for the cake. It was an inexpensive party, and everyone had tons of fun.

2. For bigger kids, host a slumber party at a local hotel with a pool. This is a great option for any time of year — just choose a hotel with an indoor pool during the cold months. Limited sleeping quarters is a great excuse to trim the guest list down to just the closest friends, or get adjoining rooms or a suite for a bigger party.

Arrive at the hotel early on the day of the party and decorate the room(s) just as you would for any birthday party — balloons, streamers, the whole works. Put goody bags on the beds and stock the room with lots of snacks. Bring along some board games for after the pool closes and you find yourself with a roomful of excited kids.

Here are some of Amy’s Pool Party designs. Have a great summer everyone!

Swimming Pool Party Banner

Swimming Girl Invitation

Swimming Pool For Boys Photo Invitations

Pool Party Invitations

The post Don't Have a Pool? Throw a Pool Party Anyway! appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.

Fun idea:  Have the guests at your party sign the banner and take it home and hang it in his or her room as a memento of the event! How awesome to look up and see the all the signatures of his/her family and friends while remembering such a fun day.

Don’t forget! Graduation season is coming up–hang a graduation banner to conGRADulate the class of 2012!

Amy's Tulips Party Banner

Princess Crown Party Banner

Green Tractor Party Banner

Brunette Boy Graduate Party Banner

Baby Boys Stroller Party Banner

Fairy Party Banner

The post Party Banners! appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.

Hi Amy,

I’ve been meaning to write to you to tell you that the invitations for my daughter Stella’s ice skating birthday party were beautiful and everyone loved them!! I also wanted to share the attached photo with you of her birthday cake. We loved the invitations that you made so very much that we asked our local bakery to base her cake on them!

Thank you again for making Stella’s birthday party a success! I’m going to look on your site for thank you cards next!!

If you, too, would like to have a cake at your party based on Amy’s designs, e-mail us to see how to proceed! Here’s the picture of Stella’s birthday cake, based on Amy’s Girls Ice Skating design:

And here are Amy’s Girls Ice Skating cards:

Girls Ice Skating Invitations

Girls Ice Skating Folded Notecard

Girls Ice Skating Flat Notecard

Girls Ice Skating T-shirt

The post Girls Ice Skating appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.

Start with Amy Adele’s Superhero Girl Party Invitations:

Make your own cake and cupcakes based on these simple but fun designs:

Add some Superhero Energy Fuel:

Then finish off the festivities with Superhero Thank You Cards for all the birthday presents!

Superhero Girl Stationery

The post Treat Your Little Wonder to a Super Girl Party appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.

It’s particularly hard for small children who still want to have their regular birthday parties with all the regular party activities — like bounce houses, rollerskating, pool parties, etc. And even though everything is red and green, kids still like to have unique parties that match their own identities — super hero, ballerina, princess, cowboys, etc.

Here are a few uniquely Winter party themes:

Ice Skating

Ice Skating Cake

Girls Ice Skating Invitations

Snowmen

Snowman Cupcakes

Snowman Invitations

Snowboarding

Snowboarder Cake

Snowboarder Invitations

Snow Skiing

Snow Ski Cupcakes

Red Skis Stationery

The post Happy Birthday, Christmas Baby! appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.

Owl Cookies:

1. Owl Cookie Pops
2. Pink and Green Owl Cookies
3. Blue Owl Cookies
4. Brown Owl Cookies

Owl Cakes:

Clockwise from top left:
1. Cute Owl Cake
2. Pink Owl Party Cake
3. Festive Feathered Owl Cake
4. Upright Owl Cake

Owl Cupcakes:

1. Pink Owl Cupcakes
2. Chocolate Owl Cupcakes
3. Candy Corn Nose Owl Cupcakes
4. Mother Owl and Owlets Cupcakes

Amy’s owl designs:

Colorful Owl Notes

Colorful Owls Invitations

Owl Folded Notecards

The post Whoooo Loves Owls? appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.

Let the kids become the animal they love most — whether it’s the striped zebra, the lanky giraffe or the playful monkey. Hire a face painter to do each child’s face when they arrive to put them into their favorite character. Then can carry the theme further with decorative headbands made from construction paper and markers — a great craft project to do early on while you’ve still got everyone’s attention.

Safari activities include “Going On a Lion Hunt“, “Monkey, May I?” (an adaptation of Mother, May I?), Jungle Charades (kids act out an animal) and Feed the Elephant bean bag toss (kids toss bean bags at a target designed to look like an elephant’s open mouth).

ZiggityZoom.com has fun jungle animal sandwiches:

Betty Crocker has the perfect jungle themed cupcakes, and here’s the video showing exactly how to make them.

And you’re going to need invitations and thank you notes:

The post Birthday Parties — Jungle Animals appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.

Gather lots of pink and tulle for a Ballerina-themed birthday party!

Here are a few tips for the perfect birthday bash for the budding ballerina.

Check out this blog posting by Kim at Three Peanuts for the amazing ballerina party she threw for her daughter, Kate.  Lots of photos and great ideas!

If the guests can arrive in their own tutu’s, great. If not, make simple ones with tulle and pink ribbon they can put on over their regular party clothes.

Party activities can include having a real dance teacher come in and give the guests a private lesson, playing “Ballerina Says,” decorating their own tiaras with glue and rhinestones, letting each child lead the others in a dance where everyone copies what the leader is doing, and Freeze Ballet (dance until the music stops and then freeze in whatever pose you’re in).

And don’t forget the cake (and cupcakes).

Ballerina Cake from A Cake to Remember

Cupcake Tower from Pink Cake Box

Our Amy Adele Ballerinas:

Ballerina Party Invitations

Ballerina Invitations

Ballet Slipper Notecards

Ballerina Party T-shirt

Ballerina Waterproof Label

The post Birthday Parties — Ballerinas appeared first on Amy Adele Blog.