Summer Tea Time

by Heather

Home Goods plates; vintage teacups from another china set; Home Goods place mats; tea towels (which I use as napkins) from a little shop in Minneapolis 

I like tea parties. Give me any excuse to have one and I will. This time the tea started out to be for one party but segued into another instead. Oh well...any excuse will do. I always have loose tea leaves on hand -- I start each day with a pot of tea -- and I usually have scone mix in the cupboard. I know how to make scones from scratch but why would anyone bother to do so when, with this mix, all you do is add water and they're great every time. 

With the scones, I like to serve several types of jams -- usually strawberry and lemon curd -- and clotted cream (aka Devonshire cream).

Lemon curd and strawberry with champagne jam are held in glass bowls with glass serving spoons from local shop, Bungalow; clotted cream is in vintage Waterford; butter dish from Home Goods

Cost Plus is the place where I can find all of these items at good prices. I'll also pick up Cadbury milk chocolate fingers and Walkers shortbread if I know that I'm doing a tea in the near future.  Can you tell that I'm not the baker in our blogging trio?

Scones, shortbread and chocolate fingers are placed on Home Goods two-tiered plate stand.

For this tea, I made two types of tea sandwiches: egg salad on wheat and chive butter/cucumber on white. I used a mandolin slicer for the first time to get the cucumber slices thin enough -- why haven't I used this before?? It's been sitting in the cupboard for years!

Sandwiches are placed on a tiered glass stand from Home Decor. Note the sweet birds perched at the top; they fit right in with the bird motif on the plates.

 If I'm going all out, I will generally add at least one more type of sandwich as well as cheese straws and sausage rolls and if I'm really on a roll, jam tarts and sandwich cake.

One of the best parts of having a tea is setting the table. I love the green bird and flower patterned china that I picked up at Home Goods this spring so I started with those plates.

I wanted to offer both de-caf and regular tea so I needed two teapots. Home Goods again to the rescue with two pots I had picked up this spring -- one to match the green plates; one in cream with a bird motif.

The only new items on the table: two candelabras from Home Goods (where else?)

I couldn't resist these candelabras. I'll probably put them into storage after the tea and bring them out again at Christmas. I can picture them during that season surrounded by silver and sparkle.

A green linen runner down the middle of the table and two preserved boxwoods in their own wire basket, both from Home Goods, added to the off-center centerpiece.

Butter knives and additional tea spoons are corralled in silver cups

Maybe for my next tea, I'll do a coastal theme. The tea pot below with a matching sugar and creamer is needing some action.

Home Goods tea pot, sugar, creamer, and tray

Home Goods jar; Nordstrom's candleholders

Come on over for a cuppa, okay?

Love,
Heather