MMP - Tea Party: Fancy Hats and White gloves

If you are coming here from the Make Mine Pink blog, WELCOME! I hope you will enjoy tea with me! :) Be sure to see previous posts. This is a week long tea! :) (And a giveaway too! Be sure to enter on Tuesday's post!) I have so enjoyed visiting the other teas!! Some of them are so very elegant while others are just plain FUN!!

Sometimes it is nice to come up with a theme, but it is not always necessary. Sometimes an unexpected guest comes over and you can invite them to tea! :) And without a theme, there is also no pressure on your guest to dress a certain way.

But it is oh so FUN to dress up! I love to collect fancy hats. You can find them at almost any thrift store. They are a bit more difficult to find at garage sales, but I have found a few. Fancy hats are so much fun! We wear them all the time (not just at our tea parties). Collecting them allows me to pick and choose which one to wear and which one to share! Imagine the fun your guests will have being able to pick a nice fancy hat to wear! While straw hats are nice, they seem to attract little feet which step on and break them easily. I highly encourage you to search out the fabric/ribbon/crocheted ones. There are also lots of free patterns on the web for you to make your own hat. (Pic of AA - 7yr)

You can also find those old bridesmaid dresses that no one ever got to wear again. Maybe you can fit in one or one of your guests can. But you can also allow your girls to wear them! And if you are a good seamstress (or know someone who is), you can alter the dress or make a new one! One of my friends has a daughter who made a dress for her sister using the skirt of one of these fancy dresses!

You can also find white gloves at most dollar stores now. I got a pair for each of my girls at the dollar store.

Of course, dressing up for tea is nice, but not if it is going to make your guests uncomfortable! Know who you are inviting and if they are the kind of person who would have the attire to dress up. And if not, then offer to let them borrow one of your dresses/hats, again, only if you know it will not offend them.

The main point of all this is not to show off. In fact, this can be used as an opportunity to teach them that beauty is the hidden person of the heart and not the outward adorning. But it is a good thing, especially in this day and age, to "walk feminine, talk feminine, smile and beguile feminine". In other words, it is important for our girls to LEARN TO BE FEMININE! And not just feminine, but modestly feminine - they need to learn to be ladies.

My girls get enough roughing around gardening, climbing trees, camping, hiking and the like. Dressing up for a tea party is a wonderful time/way to remind them of their femininity. And what a wonderful time to treat those shut-ins and elderly like ladies too. So even if you don't have the fancy dress, fancy hat and white gloves...encourage your girls and guests to dress up. Even if it is just for the party. :)

Tomorrow: Let Them Eat Cake!