For a birthday I decided to have a Paris themed Tea Party. My room is french themed with furniture inspired from the time of Louis Phillipe. I thought I’d like to recreate that theme. For my party I wanted to incorporate as much french detail as possible, which meant doing a lot of work and planning and all of course on a budget! When you think of Paris you think of streets with little cafés and delicious french cuisine with accordion music playing.
In France, fashion, perfume and food are very much part of their culture. I decided to try and recreate a Paris street, with some shops and a café. I had ‘La Perfumerie’, ‘La Boutique’,’La Patisserie’ and the Café de Paris in my kitchen!! I drew all of these paper shop fronts from rolls of paper we found in a recycling bin! I used old bookshelves and decorated them with paper and cardboard to make them look like French armoires.
For the ‘La Perfumerie’ shop I wrapped scented soap in Paris inspired tissue paper and placed a pink bow and paper rose around them. I also gave out samples of little perfumes. There was also little pink bags containing nail varnish, lip gloss and balm, all these items were for people’s goodie bags. On the shelf there some vintage perfume bottles of my own and some bottles I decorated myself. On the’La Parfumerie’ shop front, I drew a large window and a vintage door way.
For the ‘La Boutique’ shop front I made two paper dresses for the window display. Pink paper flowers adorned the front of the shop with a crepe paper decorated umbrella and crepe paper box plants. On the shelf I have two pairs of vintage high heels, bags and jewellery plus little french themed accesories. I also made sock roses which I gave to everyone. The party bags I used were made from a roll of Paris themed gift wrap which guests filled as they went from shop to shop, collecting their goodies.
The ‘La Patisserie’ was one of the popular shops with all Paris themed cakes and cookies! Myself and my mom made them. The glass jar lights were old pasta jars that we covered with pieces of lacy table cloth bought in the discount shop. I tied a flower around the top with ribbon. Our floral cake plates were plain white paper plates to which we glued floral jam jar covers and cut to shape.
My dad and my brother made this sweet cart. This was very popular, especially the pink bon bons packets which my brother made. The cart was never without company and there was plenty of refills and top ups needed throughout the night.
My sister her friend and my cousin were dressed up as three little Marie Antoinettes as hosts for the night. They gave guests their goodie bags and escorted them to the different shops and helped serve in the café. The dresses the girls are wearing were all handmade by my mom. The wigs were bought in TIGER which was very handy because they really completed the outfits.
To make the French Salon we temporarily covered some French style chairs and an old chaise we had. The pink stripped material came from a large inexpensive duvet cover that we picked up in Penny’s. The material for the chairs was sewn on with invisible thread and the material for the chaise was stapled on with an upholstery stapler.
Our café tables were circles my dad cut from some left over wood and some plastic piping he had in our backyard. They were covered with table cloths from the discount shop.
We had a little photo booth which was the side of a Paris themed duvet which we attached to two sticks, put some holes in around the print of the Eiffel Tower and stuck a little set of led lights which I bought for €1.30 through, it looked really nice lit up. We made funny glasses etc from card for people to wear for the photos.