A little taste of summer...

It's snowy/rainy/cloudy/a little sunny here in Seattle (so, you know, normal weather for us). I'm thinking about how nice it will be in the next few (ok, six) months to not have to consider donning two pairs of socks and some long johns (I'm cold all.the.time.) The thought of sun and warmth reminded me of the cute little vegan tea party we had last summer. On a bit of a whim I decided to throw the tea party for a friend's daughter - she had a dress and no where to go. What a tragedy!

I was inspired by some Laura Ashley plates I found at Michaels, which were teal and hot pink. Apparently, I have a surprising amount of teal and pink stuff in my house, so the rest of the decor just sorta came together! (I mean, really, I had hot pink wrapping paper to use as a table runner and teal tape! It was meant to be.)

Of course, I forgot to take photos until after everyone left because I was behind in making the tea sandwiches. Some day time management will just click with me, right? (Right!?)

The four year old guest of honor picked out these lovely gerbera daisies, which just happened to match absolutely perfectly. I just love it when things work out that well! And, because I'm obviously certifiable, I took some lettered beads I had at home and spelled out each of the kids' names and attached them to place card holders. Cuteness!

I also had some pretties hanging from the ceiling.


Here is the one photo I managed to take of the spread.


I made jelly sandwiches on white bread,


and these amazing vegan cucumber mint tea sandwiches with wasabi maple spread on wheat bread from here.


Then there were blueberries (of course - they're blue!),


and strawberry panzanella with either soy or regular yogurt (which looks like a hot mess, but is absolutely amazing. Here is the recipe. Make this NOW.)


We also had homemade strawberry lemonade, which I managed to accidentally crop out of this picture. Good thing I got the random sprinkles in there, though. Excellent.

And yes, I labeled the sugar and the lemons. Sometimes I get carried away with paper goods.

Of course, there were cupcakes for decorating. They were vegan chocolate and vanilla (in hot pink and teal cupcake wrappers) with soy buttercream frosting.

The kids went outside (outside = best decision ever) and decorated their own cupcakes with sprinkles and more sprinkles! I don't have a photo of all the sprinkles I made, but because of concerns about allergies and hidden ingredients, I just took sugar and dyed it 5 or 6 different colors. It was inexpensive (thank goodness - they poured ginormous quantities on each cupcake), and it worked out quite well.

As an after-cupcake-decorating event, I made little books using my grandmother's sewing machine (which was really just an excuse to create a whale border on something), laid out tons of puffy stickers on a small picnic table with crayons and colored pencils and let the kids create their own books.

Do you think I have a photo of the table or the end products? Yeahno. But the kids had a great time, and so did the adults!