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Thank you all for visiting me on this lovely day! This post was originally created for a blog hop party courtesy of Miss Vanessa Valencia of A Fanciful Twist circa June 2010. You can view the original post HERE! I still think this is one of the most creative photoshoots I have done to date. The photos came out so magickal and beautiful that I just had to repurpose them for this blog. However, instead of depicting the whole Tea Party scene of Alice and Wonderland like I did in the blog party post, I am instead going to use my photos as a tool to give you some ideas on how you can host your own magickal Mad Tea Party! So let’s get started! HERE ARE 6 ESSENTIALS YOU MUST HAVE, TO THROW A SUCCESSFUL WONDERLAND TEA PARTY! 1. THE TABLESCAPE  So first things first, when creating the tablescape, I had to decide on a color scheme. I really wanted the colors to pop off the background, so I thought it would be cool to have white as my base color and have all of the accents be really bright and eye catching. I used a white table cloth with pink floral accents, which my mom had gotten as a gift from a relative from Italy. These types of linens can be found at any type of chotchkey shop like The Christmas Tree Shop, or Marshall’s, Homegoods.  The crystal accented cupcake tier was a piece that I had scooped up from Home Goods and it has probably been my favorite party piece since. I can’t even tell you how many events I have used it for. It just adds the perfect touch of elegant shabby chicness!  You can also make your table fun and interesting with fun and whimsical little characters! I love this little frog stuffed animal lying around the house, and I thought, “Why not invite him for tea?” He’s so whimsical, and reminds me of a character from The Wind in the Willows!! He was surely dressed for the occasion! Also be sure to make use of antique lace doilies and an assortment of different tea pots for an extra bit of quirk!  I also had this fake potpourri cake lying around to use for the photoshoot, but you can most certainly bake a real cake to host for your guests!! I also printed out an Alice paper cutout by the artist John Tenniel who did the original illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. I thought she would make a nice little addition to the tablescape! Feel free to add other characters to yours as well!  2. THE SWEET TREATS Now being that the tier is white, I really wanted the color to pop right off of it with the sweet treats that I was going to be adorning it with. I thought alternating the cupcakes in pink and orange frosting would be a treat for the eyes as well!  So these cupcakes were made with Strawberry cake mix. You can either use Betty Crocker or Pillsbury Strawberry mix. For the frosting I’m pretty sure I used just a regular vanilla frosting for half the cupcakes, and for the other half of the batch, I added a small bit of orange food coloring to the white frosting to get an orange frosting. I topped all of the cupcakes off with pink crystal sprinkles, and then I adorned the top of the cupcake with NON-EDIBLE Prima Paper Flowers. I used pink flowers to top the white cupcakes, and the yellow flowers to top the orange ones. I used the paper flowers mostly for aesthetic value since I was doing this for a photoshoot, but I’m sure you can find flowers like these made out of sugar so that they can be ingested as well.  I hope you are enjoying yourself so far! We decorated the table in our cleanest linens and sweetest confections, just for you! Our next sweet treat I’d love for you to try are our homemade sugar cookies, but be careful… Just one small bite make you grow very large!  For these delectable cookies, I just used boxed cookie dough, rolled it out, and then cut with cute little heart shaped cookie cutters. I let the cookies get a bit lukewarm before handling so I didn’t burn myself. Next I put the store bought white icing on and piped on the words “Eat Me” as a cute little tribute to the story, and topped off with some fun pastel sprinkles. Some of the store bought frostings come with the cute sprinkles attached to the top in a small packet.  These were a lot of fun to make, and I also made a cute little bunny shape with a cookie cutter I had as well! Be as creative as you’d like with these! You could also probably find tea cup shapes, or even quirky hat shapes as well! The platter that I had placed them on was an old marble chess board that my parents had lying around. I thought it was the perfect platter for such a puzzling event! Don’t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to plating your sweet confections! I also surrounded the platter with candles to add to the ambiance. The one in front is a Mango scented one that I had also bought on clearance at Marshall’s. It’s perfect for summer! 3. ELIXIRS The only way to reverse this quirky shrinking side effect is to take a sip of our very secret potion….  I thought a cocktail of red juice would be a nice pop of color amidst all of the white linens and decor, and it also has that mysterious and magickal look to it as well. I used cranberry cocktail juice, but you could use fruit punch, or even go for a whimsical pink lemonade if you so choose. It really is all up to you! Now I know what you are thinking! What vessel will I provide for my magickal “growing” elixir? 4. DINING WARE I found some really cute and inexpensive tea cups and saucers at Marshall’s. However, I was looking for some colorful ones, and I could only find them in white, so I had painted the outsides of them for the photoshoot. They aren’t really good for actual dining anymore, so I am going to fill them with wax and make them into candles! There is always another purpose for things!  5. AMBIANCE AND LIGHTING  Ambiance and setting the mood is probably one of the most important things to take into consideration when planning a party! You want the area to feel cozy, warm and inviting and you want to transport your guests into another time and place! In our case, we really want our guests to feel as if they have really fallen down the proverbial rabbit hole, and into a world of whimsy and magic!! So how can we achieve this? With LIGHTING!!! Not only with a string of lights, but with colorful accents and pops of color that illuminate the space and give it that sense of glowing warmth.  One way to illuminate the space is candles; the flickering flame makes the table most inviting and most certainly enchanting! I also really loved using multicolored paper lanterns which warmed up the space very nicely! The different colors of the illuminated lanterns reflect so beautifully off of the crystals that hung from the white cupcake tier, and it bounced the light around the rest of the space, ever so magically!   Also be sure to make use of any greenery you have around! Wonderland is a lush landscape of magickal flora and fauna, so hanging your lighting in any bushes or plants you have around your yard will set the dreamlike mood for your party. I have a nice vine that grows in the corner between my fence and house, so it was perfect to make use of for this party dreamscape!  Moonlight is another option that is amazing for dining under on a magickal and warm summer’s night! Not everyone takes the moon into consideration when planning a party, but if you do have the chance to, why not plan a special “FULL MOON” garden gathering for your magickal friends at night? How whimsical would that be?!!?   6. CHARACTER COSPLAY  Now this is especially true for children’s parties! I think dressing up as the characters of whatever story you are portraying at your gathering, adds an element of realness for your guests, whether they’re real children, or adults who are children at heart! You can’t have a Mad Tea Party without the Mad Hatter, so I held my boyfriend Avi against his own will and made him help me out for this. Hehehehe…  This costume was actually pretty easy to put together; we found a lot of the items and garments for it at our local thrift store. The one that we always love going to is UNIQUE; there’s a few of them around our area. We got the coat and the pants there. The hat, I believe was from Hot Topic, which we spray painted a bit gold, and we made our own hat pins with some floral wire that we hot glued some random found buttons to.  We also wrote the numbers on the hat card with some marker in quirky handwriting, and then burned the edges with a lighter to give it a worn and tattered look. We tied the base of the hat in some pink fabric to complete the look. If there is any part of this costume that you’d like me to do a video or blog post on how to make, please be sure to let me know in the comments below!  So, there you have it! There are my 6 ways to spice up your whimsical Wonderland Tea Party! Please be sure to post your comments and questions in the comments section down below and I will do my best to address them!  Before I go, as per visitor request, here are a few of the fun shots we took of both of us in the costumes!    I hope you enjoyed yourself! Thanks for visiting! Till next time! 
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So my mom has been making this banana bread recipe since I was very little and it’s always fun to try different versions of it with different little surprises added inside. You can pretty much add anything you want to the batter, but today I decided to try out some butterscotch morsels with walnuts. I also had dried cranberries on hand, but wasn’t sure if that would be overkill. Maybe next time! So my mother brought to my attention that the bananas were starting to go bad, which is the BEST time to make banana bread!! She wanted to make it, but she was busy with some other things, so she asked me to. So I whipped out her handy dandy recipe! INGREDIENTS 1 3/4 cups of all purpose flour 2/3 cup sugar 1 teaspoon double acting baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon baking soda Once I got all of my ingredients together I preheated my oven to 350 Degrees and then I added the dry ones first to a large mixing bowl.  Next add 1/2 cup of shortening, or you can use butter or margarine. I actually used Earth Balance Vegan Butter and it worked just as well! I also used the same thing to grease my pan. Here in this step you want to cut the butter or shortening into your dry ingredients with 2 knives, scissor style, OR you can do what I did and mash it all together with your hands… (Make sure you take off your rings and your hands are clean !)  Mash it together until you get these coarse crumbs!  Next mash up your 2 overly riped nanners, and lightly beat 2 eggs!  Add that to your crumbly dry mixture along with a half a cup of your butterscotch morsels and a half a cup of your crushed walnuts!  Fold all of that into your batter with a spatula!  Now grease your bread pan, and pour your batter into it. Pop that baby in the oven and set your timer to 55 minutes to 1 hour!  Before our next recipe, let’s take a much needed and well deserved break! Time to LICK THE BOWL!!! :-X (That part always makes me still feel like a kid again!) While that is in the oven it is time to get started on our magickal refreshing Chai Tea Elixir! This is great to drink on the side with your banana bread! CHAI TEA ELIXIRFirst bring a pot of water to a boil…  Once that is boiled, turn off the heat and get out 2 teabgs. I love this Organic Tazo Chai, but you can use any brand of Chai that you wish.  Put the 2 tea bags in your pot of HOT water and let that steep. You might want to wrap the tea bag’s string around the pot handle to prevent the whole thing from falling into the water. Be careful not to burn yourself doing this! Also, while your teabags are steeping and your water is still HOT, now add your sugar and stir so it dissolves. You can add sugar to taste: less if you don’t like it as sweet, or more if you love a sweet chai like myself  While your tea is steeping, check on your banana bread! Stick a toothpick or fork in the center, and if you have raw batter come out onto the fork, then let it bake a bit more. Mine was actually still a bit uncooked in the center after a full hour. I think I added an extra 10 minutes, and again it was still uncooked. Finally after adding another 15, it was baked all the way through.  Time to take out our BANANA BREAD! Let that cool on your stovetop now, and go check on your chai tea…  Once your tea is lukewarm on the stove, now it is time to pour it into a pitcher, add a handful of ice,and also some milk to taste. Add more if you like your tea lighter, less if you love a dark tea. I love my chai creamy, so I added a lot of milk! Put that in the fridge to chill it for a bit until you are ready to serve! While your bread is cooling, and your tea is chilling, there are a few things I want to show you… I bought some new books!! I had a some money on a gift card that I had been saving for a special occasion. Well I had just finished reading Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen, and I was really craving more of her magical stories, so I had set out to find some more of her work.  I picked up The Girl Who Chased the Moon, and The Sugar Queen. Aren’t these beautiful? I can’t wait to devour their magical pages!  Aside from the Sarah Addison Allen Books, I also stumbled upon a beautiful bright pink leather bound book called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Other Stories. I thought the cover was so enchanting with its filigreed whimsical cover with golden accents.  The inside covers are beautifully illustrated with gold dipped pages. The book also includes a silk book mark sewn into the binding and the pages themselves include the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel  The back cover has the Mad Hatter on it, which I loved as well!! I cannot wait to read these amazing works!  I thought the book was so beautiful that I just had to add it to my collection! I really wanted to share it with you all O would you look at that! Our bread is cooled and our chai tea latte is chilled!  Would you like a slice or two? Don’t forget to have some iced chai tea latte! It is sure to keep you cool on this HOT SUMMER’S DAY!  I think I have decided which book I want to start with: THE SUGAR QUEEN!  Now excuse me while I cozy up in a cushiony chair under the shaded pergola and devour my tasty afternoon sweet treats and my magical book! CHEERS! 
So I was thinking, and since Avi and I were The Mad Hatter and Queen of Hearts this past Halloween, we still have costumes! So I was thinking since we already had our costumes all sorted out, all we have to do is set up a tablescape and take some pictures…. But what is a Mad Tea Party, with NO tea cups!?!? I searched and searched online, but real china tea sets are so expensive! So I figured I would go on an excursion. I checked out a Marshall’s by my house, and I found these really cute white porcelain cup/saucers ! They were only $2.99 a set, so I got 4 sets, and even a tea pot for only $18!
I loved that they were white porcelain, my wheels were turning as I was looking at the cups in the store. The fact that they were practically a blank canvas, was enough for me to scoop them up and take them home! I painted them bright colors (Blue, pink, yellow, green) and I accented the design around the plates with some gold craft paint I had…  I was so excited how they were coming out after the first plate I had done !! Once I was finished, painting the cups and saucers I sprayed them with a clear gloss sealant spray I purchased at home depot. The only thing that sux about it is that , it is not Glass Paint, so the cups and saucers are not actually useable … which is a shame, cuz they are so beautiful… but I guess I can settle for them just being decorative pieces, and able to use them just for the photo shoot… Here is a little sneak peek of just one of the plates  This project is to be continued. I have 2 more sets to spray paint, and sometime this week , I want to set up a mock table scape to kinda practice and figure out how I want to lay everything out for the shoot… Until then, guess what I found bloomed in my backyard this past week?
 Finally!! It’s about time, I have ben waiting for these beauties to come out
Here is another exotic flower growing in my backyard. I’m not exactly sure what they are, but they are just as beautiful! On a sadder note, the clematis leaves only last about a week or 2 :-(. Its beautiful pinkish purple vibrant leaves have withered away and wilted off the little wisps… I miss them already! Well it is getting late here, I just wanted to share a bit of this weekend with you all… Have a good night!  |
About JustinaJustina is the creative force behind Bohemian Magic Studios. She is inspired by bright colors, nature, books, and movies. She loves cooking, arts n crafts projects, essential oils, reading the tarot and talking about astrology! SAVELANDS Join me in my mission to plant trees! Look cute and help save Mother Nature!
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