Garden Tea Party

Little girls love tea parties. Double the fun by combining the themes of gardening and tea. If the weather is fine, host it in the garden; if not, an indoor picnic is just as special.

Use plastic wineglasses for juice; second-hand tea cups and saucers for milk.
Dress a table with white linens (they can be cleaned, after all!) and plastic dollar-store doilies. Alternately, use a white paper tablecloth and scatter some real flower petals over top.
Pick pastel colors for balloons, streamers and plastic tableware.
For inside parties, fill bud vases with real blooms and place throughout party room.
Fill big terracotta planters with ice to cool cans of pop or drinking boxes.
Serve "hors d'oeuvres" (finger food, little sandwiches, snacks, etc.) on trays.
Dress Dad as the butler and Mom as the maid to properly "serve" the ladies.

Have a stash of second-hand-store "Ladies Who Lunch"-wear on hand to make costuming part of the party.
Help girls decorate inexpensive straw hats with faux flowers and scrap ribbons. Take a group picture of the girls in their finery to send with the thank-you card; send party hats home as favors.
Cut out petals from construction paper prior to the party. At the party, let girls add sparkles and tape petals to giant cellophane-wrapped lollipops. Arrange flower-lollipops as a centerpiece. Girls can take their flower home.
Play What Flower/Vegetable Am I? Tape seed packets to the back of each guest. They get clues from other players to help them guess what they are.
Girls just want to have fun. Let "ladies" change into play clothes for a Watering-Can Relay. Have racers fill a plastic watering can with water at one bucket and race to another bucket to dump it.
Hold a traditional relay but racers hand off a flower instead of a baton, or try other garden-y games like leapfrog.
Help girls plant a large patio planter with a variety of annuals. (Even little ladies love getting their hands dirty!)
Stage an old-fashioned tea-leaf reading: dress-up with a floppy garden hat and predict the girls' futures from tea cups.

packet of seeds and gardening gloves
flower-themed gifts from the dollar store, including small booklets, pads and pencils
pretty dollar-store jewelry
second-hand teacup and saucer set
straw hat with flowers
hand each guest a fresh flower as they leave
tiny terracotta pots filled with jelly beans, wrapped in cellophane and tied with curly ribbon

tip: place favors in a kids' watering can