Valentine Tea in Wonderland

Alice: If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?

The Saturday before Valentine's Day, our dear friend Nancy Itson invited the girls to join her in Wonderland for a magical tea party.

Mad Hatter: Would you like a little more tea?

Alice: Well, I haven't had any yet, so I can't very well take more.

March Hare: Ah, you mean you can't very well take less.

Mad Hatter: Yes. You can always take more than nothing.

Upon their arrival at the Itsons' home, the girls found keys outside the door with a note instructing them to unlock the door to Wonderland. When they turned the key, they were greeted by the Mad Hatter himself.

White Rabbit: [singing] I'm late/ I'm late/ For a very important date./ No time to say "Hello, Goodbye."/ I'm late, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.

Nancy's table was a visual feast, with so many beautiful details to behold. This was a royal affair, after all.

White Rabbit: Her Imperial Highness, Her Grace, Her Excellency, Her Royal Majesty, the Queen of Hearts! [crowd cheers]

Nancy found free printable "Eat Me" and "Drink Me" tags here.

Mad Hatter: Do you care for more tea?

Alice: Why, yes, I'm very fond of tea.

March Hare: If you don't care for tea, you could at least make polite conversation!

The tea table held many sweet treats, but the sweetest surprise was the last to drop in.

[Alice falls down the rabbit hole and her dress poofs up like a parachute]

Alice: Well, after this I should think nothing of falling down stairs.

Nancy does not hesitate to pull out her finest pieces when children come to call, and she believes they rise to the occasion. The treasured teapot above was a gift from an elderly friend.

Cheshire Cat: Oh, by the way, if you'd really like to know, he went that way.

Alice: Who did?

Cheshire Cat: The White Rabbit.

Alice: He did?

Cheshire Cat: Who did?

Alice: The White Rabbit.

Cheshire Cat: What rabbit?

Alice: But didn't you just say -- I mean -- Oh, dear.

"Drink Me," this glass encourages. But do you want peach tea or raspberry lemonade?

Daisy: What kind of garden do you come from?

Alice: Oh, I don't come from any garden.

Daisy: Do you suppose she is a wildflower?

The Queen of Hearts made a royal edict for fun, and the Mad Hatter kept all the girls laughing with his silly antics. I heard one little girl exclaim, "This is the best tea party ever!"

Doorknob: Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the right direction.

White rabbits, clocks, playing cards and whimsical elements brought the theme together.

Alice: Oh, pooh, I'm not afraid of you. Why, you're just a pack of cards.

This party gave Nancy a wonderful opportunity to mix several favorite patterns. (Clockwise from top left: (1) Libby glasses from Dollar Tree added sparkle to the table and mixed well with finer pieces; (2) This pair of teacups was my favorite vignette at the party (top cup, unmarked antique; bottom cup, Crown Potteries Co.); (3) The lacy white teapot is  from I. Godinger & Co.; (4) Nancy's husband, Dennis, bought this set of Spring Night by Keito china for their daughter, Haley, when she was about 10 years old; (5) The silver handled teapot is from Modern China Institute; (6) Haley was happy to lend her Spring Night luncheon plates and teacups to the occasion.) 

Alice: When I get home I shall write a book about this place ... If I ever do get home.

There is still more to come, so join me tomorrow to sample Nancy's tea party menu!



An Invitation to Tea

When Mary Ashley and Emma discovered invitations to a Valentine tea at the home of our dear friend Nancy Itson, I'm not sure which one of us girls squealed the loudest.

Nancy's invitation, a cut-out teacup, features a clever pull-out tag that looks like a tea bag. Nancy found the perfect vintage teacup graphic free from The Graphics Fairy.

We immediately cleared our calendars for the Saturday before Valentine's Day, and the girls started counting down the days until Miss Nancy's tea party.

On the day of the party, girls arrived at the Itsons' home dressed in their favorite party dresses and eager to celebrate. Outside they found a a cluster of brass keys and a sign instructing them to choose a key and use it to unlock the door to the party. When they turned their keys, the girls found themselves in ...



Wonderland!

This week you are invited to go through the looking glass with me each day as I share memories from our Valentine tea in Wonderland.




Still to come, decor, menu, crafts and favors. So don't be late for this very important date with our gracious hostess, Nancy Itson!

A Winter's Day Bliss

"Winter is the time of promise because there is so little to do -- or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so." ~ Stanley Crawford




After a busy, nearly sleepless week preparing for daughter Emma's first ever slumber party, this  unhurried winter day feels like a gift. I am taking things slow today and revelling in the opportunity to be quiet. I am enjoying going back through pictures from Emma's birthday party, which I hope to share soon. But first I must share a delightful Valentine party the girls and I attended recently. Host Nancy Itson is one of my favorite people in the world, and I know you will find her as inspiring as I do. So I hope when you need to slow down and take a little time to breathe this week, you will stop in for a little loveliness.



If you are like me, it might be just the thing you need for a blissful winter day.

Happy Valentine's Day

An exquisite invention this,
Worthy of Love's most honeyed kiss, --
This art of writing billet-doux --
In buds, and odors, and bright hues!
In saying all one feels and thinks
In clever daffodils and pinks;
In puns of tulips; and in phrases,
Charming for their truth, of daisies.

-- John Henry Leigh Hunt, "Love-Letters Made of Flowers," 1863



I hope love blooms for you this Valentine's Day!

Valentine Cookies

"A hundred hearts would be too few

To carry all my love for you."

~ Author Unknown

 

Last week I made Valentine cookies, and I hope this will become an annual tradition. These were a labor of love, but I am so pleased with the results.

Valentine Cookies

These lightly sweet cookies with a touch of lemon would be perfect with a cup of tea. The dough holds its shape well during baking, so it works well with cookie cutters.

Cookie:

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1cup sugar

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

Lemon Meringue Icing:

2 large egg whites

2 teaspoons lemon juice

3 cups confectioners sugar

For cookies, preheat oven to 350 degrees at least 30 minutes before baking. Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add the egg and extracts, and mix to combine. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and  salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet a little at a time, mixing after each addition. Chill the resulting dough for at least 2 hours before turning the dough out onto parchment paper sprinkled with flour. Coat your hands and rolling pin with flour, and roll the dough to a thickness of 1/4- to 1/2-inch. Sprinkle with more flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes, and place the shapes on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 until the edges of the cookie are just beginning to brown. Remove the cookies to cool on the counter before decorating.

For meringue icing, beat egg whites and lemon juice with a handheld electric mixer until frothy. Gradually add confectioners sugar and beat until glossy. The icing is the proper consistency for covering the cookies when you lift the beaters and drips of icing stay on the surface of the icing for a few seconds before blending into the rest of the icing. Fill an icing bag with a small tip with the meringue icing, and fill one cookie at a time. To do this, pipe an outline around the cookie, then fill it in by piping icing back and forth across the cookie. The icing should blend in to create an even coating. Work quickly, and cover any icing left in the bowl when not in use, as it sets up very quickly. Allow the icing to harden completely before continuing to decorate.  

I experimented with a new technique for decorating many of these Valentine cookies. I found edible wafer papers at Fancy Flours, and they really are easy to use. With dry hands, you cut designs from the wafer paper and use a sponge brush to paint the back of the cut-out with corn syrup. Then you gently press the wafer paper to a cookie covered in hardened icing. Once the wafer paper dries for a few hours or overnight, decorate as desired. I used a stiff decorators icing to add the final details to these cookies.

I did not have enough wafer paper to cover all the cookies, so some cookies were decorated with meringue and decorators icing only.

Decorators Icing

I did not want to use butter or margarine in this icing because I wanted it to be very white and stiff. I used Wilton gel paste to tint a little of the icing for the rose buds and leaves.

1 cup shortening

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons milk

1 pound confectioners sugar

Beat shortening, vanilla and milk with a hand mixer until thoroughly blended. Add sugar gradually, and beat well after each addition.

Here are a few more of these sweet Valentine cookies -- a gift of love for the hearts we hold dear.

"In melody divine,

My heart it beats to rapturous love,

I long to call you mine."

~ Author Unknown

Conversation Heart Table

What do you get when you take a trip to the grocery store, find fresh flowers and add four bags of conversation hearts?

Something to talk about!


You can't get much more Valentine-themed than conversation hearts. These chalky little candies are a holiday classic, but my children don't care much for their flavor. So this year I decided to use them to sweeten our table instead of our tummies.

I started by accenting pillar candles with pink, green and yellow conversation hearts. I found these larger, scalloped-edge hearts at Wal-Mart. I placed the candle on a candlestick so I could turn it easily and quickly sorted a bag of conversation hearts by color. Then I started at the bottom of the candle and hot glued a row of hearts. For this candle I used an upside down pink heart for every other candy, and for the other I used an upside-down yellow heart for every other candy. Just a dab of hot glue secured each candy to the candle, and after the holiday I think I can gently remove the hearts and reuse the candles. I worked my way up the candle row by row, then tied a pink ribbon around the finished conversation heart candle.

Then I made a conversation-heart centerpiece by placing a smaller vase within a larger one and filling the space between the vases with conversation hearts. I used two bags of large conversation hearts from Wal-Mart for my two candles and vase, and I filled in extra room in the vase with a bag of smaller conversation hearts from Winn-Dixie. Once the space between the vases was filled, I poured warm water into the smaller vase and added fresh-cut flowers and greenery.

Leftover candies fill teacups and spill onto the table.

Here is a birds eye view of our table of soft pinks, white and greens.

Let's just hope our dinner conversation is as sweet as the table!

And here is something else worth talking about:




 Congratulations to Heather L., who won the Valentine package giveaway from my sister's new Etsy shop, The Polka Dot Party. Heather hosts adorable parties for her five children, so I can't wait to see how she puts to use Jennifer's cupcake toppers, liners and bottle wrappers.





Jennifer is offering a sweet deal to all readers of A Little Loveliness -- 20 percent off your entire order with the code "LOVELY" -- through the end of February.

Easy Shabby Heart Valentine Tees

The last day of January, the girls and I started combing through their closets to pull out any Valentine-themed clothing. We set aside all the pink and red dresses, skirts and pants we could find for this most romantic month. The next morning when the children got dressed for school, I overheard 5-year-old Emma telling 10-year-old brother Christian, "Remember, Mommy says that it's February, so we should start wearing all our Valentine clothes." Christian looked at her in shock and said sternly, "I do not wear Valentine's clothes!"

Although I am not likely to get my 7th- and 4th-grade boys into any hearts this season, it has been a lot of fun putting a little love into some tees for the girls to wear for Valentine's Day. Over the weekend I appliqued several t-shirts for Mary Ashley and Emma, like the red tees pictured above.

And do you want to know a secret?


This was such a budget-friendly way to create a holiday outfit. I found the long-sleeve tees on clearance at Target and used this free embroidery design from Planet Applique for the heart patch. The original design features concentric hearts, but I varied the design by only using the outer heart and adding a monogram to the center. Then I experimented with a technique for creating a shabby fringe. I layered three squares of fabric for my design and completed the embroidery before cutting the fabric around the heart. I left about 3/8" of fabric all around the heart, then used small scissors to cut slits in this fabric border. This creates a ruffled effect, which I imagine will look even better after the shirts are washed and the fabric edges begin to fray a bit.

Paired with skirts we already had, the girls have cute new Valentine outfits for less than $5 each -- a great deal for those of us who are not afraid to wear our hearts on our sleeve (or tees) this month. I have a few more cute designs to share, so hope to post those soon.

 

 

If you haven't entered the giveaway for a Valentine party package from my sister's new Etsy shop, be sure to visit this post. We will announce The Polka Dot Party winner tomorrow!

The Polka Dot Party Giveaway

Here is some news to celebrate: My sister, Jennifer, is following her passion for designing party printables to open an Etsy shop! I am so proud to introduce ...



The Polka Dot Party

Jennifer and I share a love of hosting parties, and you should hear us on the phone comparing notes on upcoming themes and ideas. It's enough to make our husbands dizzy! Now Jennifer is sharing her creative talents with friends like you. I know you will enjoy collaborating with my sweet sister to take your celebrations over the top. 

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Jennifer has designed the adorable Valentine's Day collection pictured in this post -- with cupcake toppers and wrappers, lollipop boxes and water bottle labels that can be personalized to the occasion. Whether you are sending them to school, sharing them with co-workers or setting your family table, wouldn't these printables add the perfect finishing touch to your Valentine treats?

Jennifer will be adding more collections to her shop in the coming days, so be sure to stop in regularly to see what's new. And you can see more of Jennifer's themes on Facebook. Find The Polka Dot Party page here.

Jennifer is offering a grand-opening, shop-wide discount on all her party printables for the month of February. But just for readers of A Little Loveliness, she has a special Valentine giveaway.



 

Jennifer is offering one special reader a custom Valentine set like the one pictured, which includes a dozen coordinating Valentine cupcake toppers, cupcake wrappers, lollipop boxes and water bottle labels. You have two opportunities to register; please leave separate comments below for each entry you choose:



(1) Visit the shop and add The Polka Dot Party to your Etsy favorites.
(2) Like The Polka Dot Party on Facebook.



(Due to time restraints, this giveaway is open to U.S. residents only.)



We will announce the giveaway winner next Tuesday, February 7, to allow plenty of time to share the love this Valentine's Day!

February Blooms

"Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration." ~ D.H. Lawrence

Ahhh, February. The sweetest month for a romantic heart. And this year we have an extra day of loveliness! I have so many creative projects planned during the next few weeks, I hardly know where to start. With a birthday party to host and a Valentine tea party to attend, I will have lots of charming entertaining details to share. I also have several romantic crafts and recipes planned, so look for those ideas as the month unfolds. One of the gifts this month has already brought to our yard is a profusion of camellias. The photo above captures a perfect bloom. I will be sprinkling upcoming posts with more images of these lovely flowers.

Stop in tomorrow for a giveaway perfect to top your February with sweetness!