Let's do tea -- Papertrey Style...

Welcome!  Be forewarned!  This is a super-long post with lots of info and photos, so sit back and enjoy! :-)

I have a fun project to share today.  First, a little back history...my girls and I have been very busy this winter!  They both received American Girl dolls for Christmas.  Now, even though my girls are girly-girls, they've never really been into playing dolls (much to my dismay!).  These have definitely been different though.  I must say, they are much cuter than the other twenty or so dolls that never get pulled out of their toy box!  And they have really nice hair (my oldest daughter's most-loved feature!).  They've really been playing with them a lot.  And I think even more than playing with them, we've been having so much fun crafting for them!  

My 8 year old has really been wanting to learn how to sew.  So that's what we've been doing...sewing clothes for her dolly.  She loves picking out the fabrics and planning the outfits and she sits on my lap by the sewing machine and we sew.  And we have the best time.  And she is really coming along with her sewing skills!  Right now she's working on a small quilt for her dolly....she did it completely on her own (with a few step-by-step instructions from me along the way) and it's turning out so cute.  I'm so proud of her!  

So, on to today's project.  I decided to put my Papertrey stash of supplies to work to create a fun dolly-sized tea party set!  I had a blast putting this project together and it's been all I can do to keep the little hands away long enough to photograph it!  They are just itching to start their tea party!  

The entire set includes felt food, teabags, invitations, doily napkins, a banner for decorating their party, and a decorative case to keep it all in.  I'll go over each element in detail, showing you how I put it all together, with a complete supply list at the bottom of this post.  :-)

First off are these decorated clear top tins.  One holds tiny hand-made tea bags and the other holds the felt food. I decorated the tops with diecuts and stamped labels -- the tea label is from Tea for Two and the Sweets label is from Everyday Treats.

Here is a close-up of the "teabags".  I cut apart some glassine bags and stitched them into tiny bags, filled them with beads and added a hang-tag which was cut using the Tiny Tags die and stamped with the "friend blend" sentiment from Tea for Two Additions.  Obviously if you're making this for a small child you'll want to skip the beads.  Fortunately my girls are beyond the putting-everything-in-their-mouth stage. 

And then there is the felt food.  I used some different dies to cut the felt pieces and just hand-stitched them.  The cookies are made using the heart circle and small scallop circle from Love Lives Here die collection and the larger circle used as the base is from Limitless Layers 1 3/4" Circle collection.  I didn't get them in the photo here, but I also made some heart-shaped cookies with the Heart Prints dies.  The strawberries are made with the Fruit Fusion Berry die and a Seeing Stars die as the topper.  

I have a few step-by-step shots to show you how to make the strawberries...

Diecut three berries from red felt and one medium star from green.  Trim the tops from the strawberries and discard.

Stitch the three strawberries together along the edges to form a dimensional berry.  Leave the top open like this so you can fill with a bit of stuffing.  Then use a little hot glue to adhere to star to the top of the strawberry.  You can thread some green embroidery floss through the top first to form the stem, if you wish.  

You'll notice this is a pretty fancy shmancy tea party...we even have doilies under our cookies.  These were cut with the Parisian Lace die.  I cut them from cardstock so they would be nice and sturdy for little hands.  The ones you buy in the store are flimsy, but cut from Papertrey's Stamper's Select cardstock they should make it through several tea parties.  :-)  To hold them all together neatly, I used a CD envelope.  I fancied it up a bit with some patterned paper.  I used the largest die from the Delightful Doily die collection to cut the window in my patterned paper, which fits pefectly over the window in the CD envelope.  The label was made with the Photo Finish Strips.

And of course if you're going to have a tea party, you'll want to invite your friends, right?  I created these sweet little invites with the Tiny Envelope die and the frame from Simply Jane.  

Inside is a small card with a diecut teacup from Tea for Two Additions.  My girls now think their dollies need mailboxes..will it ever end?  Gosh, I hope not.  :-)  

And what else...oh yes.  Decorations.  A real tea party always has some sort of pretty party decor, right?  I used the Banner Builder dies to create a bunting from patterned paper.  I stitched all of the banner pieces together by running them through my sewing machine, one right after the next, without cutting off the thread in between.  

A re-purposed baker's twine spool proved to be the perfect thing to wrap it around to keep it tidy.  I stamped the top of the spool with a cute image from the Daily Designs set and the "vintage style" sentiment is from Button Boutique.

And then of course, we needed something to put our treasures in.  I just happened to have this tin case in my stash...I've had it for a few years and always hoped to find a use for it.  I was so excited to find that everything for our tea party fit perfectly inside (except the dishes...they go in our play cupboard).  The tin was originally galvanized metal, but I sprayed it white and covered it with some patterned papers.

What fun!  I have a few more notes and tips about today's project...

All of the patterned papers I used are from Kaisercraft's new Fine & Sunny collection which looks like is scheduled to start shipping in mid March.  Pretty much everything else is from Papertrey Ink and is linked in the thumbnails at the bottom of this post.

A little tip...if you'd like your dolly to be able to hold the cookies and such, just simply stitch a small rubber band to the back side so you can slip it around her hand like this...

The cute little dress on our Emily doll was stitched using a pattern from KottonCandy27 on Etsy (so cute and easy!)

As for the tea set, it's just a plastic set that I found at our Dollar General store, but I think it's so cute!

Thanks for stopping by and having tea with us today!  If you have any questions, feel free to contact me!  Have a great weekend.  :-)

InLinkz.com