tea party invitation

If you were going to create an imaginary party, who would you invite? That question was posed in the form of a challenge in our children's lit group recently, and everyone was to decide upon a guest list, menu, entertainment, and send a party invitation.

I decided to do a tea party, because both my partner and I are both fond of tea. I'd recently re-read The Little Princess, and Miss Sara Crewe seemed like she would be the perfect person to host a gathering of children from other British children's books.

The guest list included:

--Mary Lennox
--Jane Banks
--Lyra Belacqua
--Lucy Pevensie
--Kanga
--Sara "Screamer" Wiggins
--Wendy Darling

The menu recreates the beautiful banquet that appears as if by magic in Sara's attic room on the night that she needs it most, along with some other choice tidbits that appear throughout the book. The entertainment includes storytelling by Sara, a visit with Ram Dass and his monkey, winter gardening with Mary, flying lessons with Wendy, and gingerbread star hanging with Jane. I've always loved that anecdote in Mary Poppins when the stars are hung up in the night sky with a ladder, and I like to think that Jane picked up enough tips to be able to teach the other girls how to do it. I included all this in a programme of sorts printed on fine linen paper, thinking that with Sara's involvement, this might be part of a series of events to benefit the Ladies Aid Society, with each hosted by a different character.

I printed the invitation at home using cardstock and mounted the printed portion onto the brown backing using the new Scotch Adhesive Dot Roller, which was kindly sent to me by the company to try out. It's very similar in concept to white out tape corrector applicators, except that it's much easier to handle. The shape of the roller fits really nicely in your hand, and it's made of sturdy, smooth plastic that's both attractive and pleasant to handle.  The clear adhesive strips go on smoothly and cleanly, and leaves behind no glue residue. It's pretty much like thin, permanent double-sided tape in a roller, which is pretty handy when you're doing paper crafts and need finer control. All in all, the roller made making the invitation much easier, and I'll definitely be using this little tool again, especially for making paper cards and tags.

After adhering the card stocks together, I stamped on a little Indian elephant with an inked Paper Source stamp, which I thought was appropriate given Sara's origins, and added a little bit of extra color and glimmer. (The photo above was snapped of the prototype, which sadly has a grammatical error! Grrr.) To finish off the set, I put in a few packets of tea for my partner to enjoy in a pretty salmon-colored envelope, and voila, a little tea party, all in one small piece of mail. I can't wait for my partner to receive her invitation...and I really do wish I could go to this party myself!