Lauren's Bridal Shower..A Mad Hatter's Tea Party!

We all went down the rabbit hole on Sunday for a Mad Hatter's Tea Party!  Quite a few hours went into this DIY bridal shower!  The decorations were important for setting the theme.  It was all so much fun!  First, I will introduce you to the bride.  This is my daughter Lauren; the bride, and our one and only child. She has met a wonderful guy who has a wonderful family and we are thrilled that they will be tying the knot on August 13, 2016.  The colors for the wedding are teal, black, white and pale gold.  We have lots of stripes in the theme and love the colors!

We decorated the deck and back yard with paper lanterns, fancy vases and roses, teal, black and white stripes and some gold.  I will pictures some of the DIY projects later in the post and any that I have instructions for I will include a blog link for how I made them, just in case you are interested!

 I tied ribbons onto the paper lanterns and the hubs helped me get them in the tree.  They were a wee bit dwarfed by the tree once we got them all in it...but I still loved the whimsical feel they gave to the party.

 The Alice in Wonderland stack of papier mache' boxes were designed and painted by me.  The characters let everyone know why they were here and what it was all about!  The boxes can later be used to store any of the decorations that were designed and crafted for this theme.

I got the striped plastic table clothes and teal and black and white striped napkins online at Walmart.  The teal table ruffles and dark pink table mats I picked up at my local party store.  Michaels was the source for all of the bottles that were decorated with acrylic gems and a tag with a key said "Drink Me".  No matter how much we drank; there were no shrinking or stretched out Alice's at this party.  We all chilled in the sun and had a every nice time!

Here are the great ladies helping out in the kitchen.  We served cucumber and chicken salad finger sandwiches, deviled eggs and 4 varieties of scones.  I made all four batches from scratch and they were wonderful.  Recipes off of Pinterest, of course.  Peach Pie with Vanilla Frosting, Chocolate Chip, Blueberry Ricotta with Lemon Frosting, and The Queen's Scones with some colored frosting on top!  Janet, the lovely lady in the center of the other four; is Lauren's new Mother-in-Law and she is from England.  So...she knows how to do a tea up right and she brought us tea from England.  Delicious!

This is Lauren with a few of her all-time Besties.  Several of her girls have husbands and babies of their own now.  It amazes me how fast the years fly by.  I have had these girls around the house since Middle School!

Angie in the red is one of Lauren's Bridesmaids.

This is our lifetime friend Kathryn.  As much as she loves people and children....well, dogs not so much! Tucker decided she was going to be his bestie and let her know she wasn't going anywhere!  I am going to frame this picture because it is a novel one that is something we probably won't see again in our lifetime.  Lol!

This is Glynda (Tina); Lauren's Aunt, along with Brenda (cousin) and her daughter Hannah.  Hannah looked beautiful in her pretty dress and she had an awesome hat for the party.  It had ears and a card at the crown....just like the Mad Hatter.  She made a present for Lauren....all by herself that should have won a prize!  She takes after her Aunt Marilyn....even though she is from my husband's side of the family.  A kindred spirit let's say......

Update:  The wedding was Saturday!  I will be posting a new blog about that!  It was a gorgeous DIY venue on the in-laws filbert farm.  A wonderful time!

Here are some of the projects I made for the shower:

Sign:  http://marilyngossettdesigns.blogspot.com/2016/07/i-love-celebrations-dont-you-am-all.html

Candy Station:  http://marilyngossettdesigns.blogspot.com/2016/06/build-treat-station-with-deflecto.html

The shower invites....outside of card.....

Dessert Stand & Sign:  http://marilyngossettdesigns.blogspot.com/2016/07/i-love-celebrations-dont-you-am-all.html

 Lauren was getting Riley ready for the wedding with this finery.  She wasn't too thrilled, as you can see.  She got a much smaller flower for the real thing.  She looked quite beautiful........Lol.

Thank you for taking the time to visit the blog today.  

Make sure to take the time to enjoy the small blessings along the way and;

Live Life with a Flourish!

Marilyn