4-year-old Tea Party For my daughter's 4th birthday, she decided she wanted a tea party, one of her favorite pastimes.  For invitations, I cut out teapot shapes from pretty floral paper and printed the invitation on vellum, which I cut into ovals to fit the teapots. I attached the vellum to the teapots with organza ribbon and then attached a "teatag" with embroidery thread that asked the girls to bring their favorite doll or stuffed animal to the tea party. I set up a tea table for the dolls by placing a small table round on top of a box (about 6" high), coverig it with a tablecloth and my daughter's toy tea sets.   When the guests arrived (we had 10) they set their dolls at the little tea table, and some sat and played there for a few minutes. We had hats, gloves and rings for any guests who wished to wear them (a few did not) and then my mother helped the girls make bead necklaces - we had separated out the letter bead for each girl's name before the party to make it easier.  After making necklaces and letting the girls visit and play for a little bit, we sat at the table, which I had decorated with teapots full of roses, my best tablecloth and my wedding china. The mothers were shocked that I let the girls use actual china teacups, but even more surprised at how ladylike they all acted! Since most little girls do not like real tea, I poured a juice and soda mixture into their cups and they all were delighted. I had a table set up in the kitchen (also with flowers and china teacups) with pretty teapots full of several flavors of tea for the adults. We served tea sandwiches, which the mothers liked even more than the daughters.  I made a 9x13 cake, which I cut into the shape of a teapot and decorated to match my daughter's favorite teapot - it was definitely a hit!  After cake, my daughter opened her gifts.  To prevent the rush on the birthday girl that often happens with little ones, I had her sit on a small child's couch,with room for one more girl. I had the girls sit in a circle on the floor, then take turns bringing Katie her gift and sitting on the couch next to her while she opened it.  This made it easier also to take pictures of my daughter with her friends.    The last activity was the pinata, in a teapot shape, of course, which I ordered from pinatas.com. I had converted it to a pull-string pinata, and tied candies to the ends.  It turned out that the fifth girl pulled the right string, but we let the other girls pull their strings off and then I shook the rest of the candy out for the girls to pick up (it didn't fall out on its own very well).  Noone seemed eager to leave, and all had a wonderful time. For favors, I had divided up a 50-piece "china" tea set (meant as a toy, but the pieces were breakable) and gave each girl a place setting wrapped in pink satin. These were placed in a gift bag with a sticker sheet, candy, and the jewelry and gloves we had already given them. (The gloves were from birthdaypartyexpress.com and were very cute and reasonable priced -  the girls loved them) I had taken digital pictures of each girl with my daughter, so I printed these out in black and white and sent them inside the thank you notes, which we wrote on pretty teapot stationary. This was a fairly simple party, although it looked elaborate.  I already had most of the supplies I needed, so it didn't cost much, either!