A Ballerina Tea Party!

Recently a friend asked me to help her plan a 'ballerina tea party' for her daughter's fifth birthday.

It was a great thrill to be asked and a lot of fun to plan!

These are the invitations I made.

I thought you might like to see some pictures of the party...

Here is the sweet little birthday girl, Lillyana, with my Liberty.

The party was in a big hall.

I've never had a hall to decorate before.

That's my helpful hubby up the ladder - I couldn't have done it without him!

 I was going to make the frilly hanging pompoms but we were able to borrow them from a friend.

This frame usually hangs on the wall in my lounge, I made some pretty birthday bunting to go in it.

The papers and letters are from 'Grace Taylor Designs'.

My beautiful Cinderella dress!

A party ballerina came along to play games with the 20 girls who were there.

Wall decorations.

Gift boxes.

Inside the gift boxes were little china trinket boxes and inside those there was a pearl necklace with a silver ballerina charm.

A table set with vintage china for 20 little ballerinas!

And tables set for the mothers of the ballerinas.
We had a small glitch with the pink chairs we were going to use, the black ones would have had bows around them if we had known we were going to use them.

Vintage ballerina placemats.

Most of the food was pink and white!

Strawberry teacup jellies.

I made those ballerina dress cookies -  still can't believe I made them!

There's a fabulous tutorial here.
I didn't have a cookie cutter, they all had to be cut out by hand, time consuming but well worth the effort!

I made this tutu skirt for Liberty to wear to her book day parade at school the week before the party.

(more about that in another post.)

A cupcake tower for the birthday girl!

 The art table.

Frills everywhere!

I love frills!!

 I made ballet bags for all the guests to take home.

 Yes! I made those cute ballet slipper cookies too!

And just beacause I felt I needed to finish things off, I made these thank you cards.

I'm very happy to tell you that the party was a great success!

And I really enjoyed being a party planner!

Mercedes

My wonderful trip!

My trip to Europe really was the 'trip of a lifetime'.

Now I'm back it all seems like it was a dream.

This time last year I would never have thought that I would be meeting Sylvia and Sabiha.

Those two girls gave me the most wonderful time. I stayed at Sylvia's house for the first few days and really was treated like a Princess from the moment I arrived!

I took about 600 photos in the ten days I was in Europe...I'll show you just a few.

The photo above was taken in the incredibly beautiful town of Zaanse Schans.

Here we all are at the restaurant where Sylvia's son is a chef.

We had the most fantastic and delicious five course meal here, I ate all sorts of things I would never eat at home, lol!

Sylvia took me to Utrecht to meet her daughter.

Never in my life have I seen so many bicycles!

Rosanna flew in from Italy to meet me!

We all such fun together, lots of talking, laughing, presents and playing with Sylvia's dollhouses!

Sylvia took Rosanna and I to Amsterdam where there were so many beautiful old buildings.

We went for a long walk to meet...

the fabulous Karina!

Karina's mouse mansion is truly a sight to behold and she is just the loveliest person!

The day after Rosanna left Sylvia, Sabiha and I went to Paris together (we were living the dream!) on the high speed train.

Macarons at McCafe!! LOL!

We spent an afternoon walking around Montmartre and enjoyed the views from the magnificient Sacre Coeur.

We managed to find our way to Lea Frisoni's tiny shop.

Doesn't it look just like a dollhouse!

The buildings in Paris were just beautiful.

I think we took more pictures of rooftops, windows and doors in Paris than anything else!

We took an 'open top bus tour' so we could see all the sights.

We were able to get off the bus and on the next one wherever we liked.

Although it was sunny it was freezing!

I don't think I have ever been so cold in all my life!

And of course we made our pilgrimage to Laduree.

Which was every bit as fabulous as I had imagined it would be!

After Paris I stayed at Sabiha's beautiful home where I continued to enjoy the life of a Princess!

Here is the table all set for breakfast.

Sabiha took me to see some very famous windmills near Dordrecht.

All too soon I was back at the airport to make my way back home.

The Netherlands are a VERY long way from New Zealand! About 23 hours flying time. On the way there I had a 16 hour stopover in Malaysia - so it took me two days to get there.

But it was worth every minute of the travel time.

Friends here at home ask me what the best part of my trip was and I can honestly say that every day was the BEST! I really cannot pick just one day!

Thanks to my wonderful friends in Europe I really did have the time of my life!

Mercedes