I am so very disappointed in myself. This past week was quite possibly one of the craftiest weeks of my life and I only have a handful of not-very-good photos to prove it. I can’t seem to take good photos – or any photos – when I’m in the middle of throwing a party.

On top of Em’s tea party on Saturday, she had another birthday party to go to in the morning and she asked if I would make her friend Lauren an apron dress like hers. We compromised on a much easier pillowcase dress which sat on my table for two days before I frantically wrapped it Saturday morning, fifteen minutes before she was being picked up. And then, I promptly realized that I had not taken a photograph of it. It turned out cute, too. Ah, well.

I have had two different projects in mind for Em’s birthday – and I did manage to get one done. She wanted a photoboard so she could have her own photos in her room. I just ran up and snapped this photo, soooo the colors are a little wonky. But it is cute purple fabric with a dark fuchsia grosgrain ribbon.  A nice, super easy, while-you-are-watching-TV, kind of project.

I just realized she might need some updated photos for it now. But, GAH! Look at her in all of her baby cuteness!

The other project I have put on hold and need to rethink a little bit. I ended up getting a different kind of desk for her room, and don’t need what I had in mind for her – so I will come up with a redesign and feature it in a future CT maybe.

We did an inordinate amount of baking last week. Emma specifically asked if we could do choir snack the week of her birthday so we could bring cupcakes. Which we did – that was Thursday.

And then on her birthday she wanted to bring cupcakes to her class. Which we did – that was Friday.

And I got the coolest cupcake pan from my Mom to use for Em’s garden tea party. Bumblebees, ladybugs and butterflies! But…it only has six cupcake molds, which means I had to fill-bake-cool-repeat, times 5, all in time for her party. In my infinite wisdom, (hoo boy.) thought it should be fine to do it on Saturday morning. Which was fine for the baking part, but left little time for the decorating part. Very little time. I was more than a little disappointed with the cupcakes. They were sloppy and kind of thrown together and I never even got a very good photo of them. You can kinda see some of them here. (And the drippy icing!)

But…the girls loved them. And thankfully there were just enough ladybugs and butterflies to go around…nobody complained and there were only bumblebees left. A minor miracle with 18 girls, let me tell you.

So party favors. I really dislike those birthday plastic bags o’ crap party favors that only end up getting chucked after a few days anyhow. So I made little fabric goody bags for the girls that fit inside our little metal gardening buckets. I used five coordinating fabrics (all in shades of purple) and just sewed up the bags and tied them with little fabric ribbons.

In the little bags we put some seed packets, and then the girls could slide their personalized teacup into their bags to take home.

And the teacups! I finally found very cheap little white teacups/saucers (I actually think they were coffee cups – but they are perfect kid-sized teacups) in Chinatown. And then I doodled and put each girls’ name on their cup. Really? AGAIN…with the no real photos? I had all of them on my dining room table all last week while I was working on them, and not a single photo of all of them. Each one was different, too. But you’ll just have to take my word for it and try to squint and see them in these photos.

The party decor…

You can see that the girls took their bags out and put them on the chairs, and then used their metal buckets to go on a ladybug hunt. Saturday morning J. and Addie planted a few hundred ladybugs in our courtyard area and the girls went crazy. It was by far the best part of the party. Someone who shall remain nameless (cough…Addie!…cough) might have said that ladybugs really like lavender…so my lavender plant is decimated. But, honestly? SO well worth it. That is just good, cheap entertainment, my friends.

We did end up playing pin-the-ladybug-in-the-middle-of-the-daisy…

…and I had a few other games as backups (including the teacup relay – awesome idea, thank you Maggie!) but we never even made it to the other games. It was all about the ladybugs, and the tea, of course.

I kept the menu kind of simple and due to time constraints, ended up buying the tea cookies and scones. I had intended on baking those too, but I’m sure they were just as good.

Each girl got a chocolate dipped strawberry (they were in the tulip wrappers by their plates), and we had tea sandwiches (pb & j and cucumber/cream cheese), fruit kabobs, watermelon, pineapple, scones and shortbread cookies. At least four or five of the girls found out they really like cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches and Em asked for it again in her lunch today.

And that…was the tea party. Perhaps by next Tuesday, I’ll be fully recovered.