Chinese Tea Party
Posted by Amy | Filed under Guests & Interviews, Party Fun
I’m excited to introduce you to a new guest mom blogger!! Meet Donna Collins the party queen!
Donna is a mom of three from southern California and owns a party planning business called Party Wishes. Donna is a lot like me and cannot let a day go by without doing something creative. We both agree that blogging has given us even more of an outlet to be creative. I’m very happy she’s agreed to share her ideas with us. You will be blown away by her fun parties!!
Donna caught my eye with a Chinese Tea party she threw for her daughter’s 8th birthday. Instead of sending boring old invites, she gave each guest a dress along with cute personalized notes asking them to wear it to the party. How cute is this??
Have fun reading about Donna’s party. I would have LOVED this when I was little! Her daughter is one lucky girl. Wait until you see the cake and decorations!!! Oh my….
I used my 100 year old Haviland china and wrapped the napkins with red Midori ribbon and beaded panda ornaments.
The guests wore the pink Mandarin dresses I passed out to them on Wednesday. They looked so cute! They even wore their hair back in buns. When they arrived, the girls practiced picking up grapes with chopsticks. 
“Tea” time consisted of egg rolls, raspberry lemonade, PB&J, Fluffernutters, turkey roll-ups, chocolate dipped strawberries, grapes and veggies with dill dip.
The girls loved stuffing their own panda bears. They each made a wish on a wishing star for their own bear and then made a wish for Sheridan and put it in her bear.
I even had little kimonos for the bears to wear. 
The girls were taught how to make origami bunny rabbits.
The party favors were fortune cookies dipped in colored chocolate with sprinkles.
Custom fortunes were inside…
When Sheridan opened her presents, each gift-giver got to sit next to her while she opened their gift. It makes the girls feel special. I asked one guest what her favorite part of the party was and she said “opening presents”.
The cake was a two tiered Devil’s Food cake with home made ganache. I made a double batch and whipped the first batch for filling and a crumb coat and left the second batch to drizzle over the rest. I chopped a total of 4 lbs. of bittersweet Belgium chocolate and used 1/2 gallon of heavy cream for it. The girls said it tasted like fudge.
The cake was inspired by a Martha Stewart wedding cake. I even bought the sugar cherry blossoms from Wendy Kromer, the same ones that are on the Martha cake. Martha used fondant but I found kids don’t usually like it. This is the Martha cake…
I love the rhinestone monogram on the top of the cake!
Sheridan and her guests had a fabulous time. All the many hours of planning paid off BIG time…it’s so nice to see my daughter having such a good time with her friends.
Thanks for sharing Donna. You really out did yourself! Can’t wait to see what other ideas you come up with next!
-Amy
For more great party ideas go to my new party page.
Tags: birthday party, chinese, girls, tea party
January 29th, 2009 at 7:01 am
What an amazing idea! So unbelievably creative and so cool to have that kind of a themed party, complete with building your own bear, in your home!
If my daughter were still little, this would definitely be something I would have loved to have done!
Dot O’s last blog post..My Goodness, I Think Have A Problem!
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January 29th, 2009 at 9:33 am
What an awesome original idea!!!……….makes me wish my girls were little again!!
Thanks for sharing this!!
~Tidymom
Tidymom’s last blog post..Snow Days!!
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January 29th, 2009 at 9:41 am
What a great party! She totally went all out! The dresses were sooo cute! Makes me wish I had a little girl to dress up and plan a party for!
Kristin’s last blog post..How to keep a child busy!
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January 29th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Holy cow, How fun- I love a good party- and this is one is so cute!
Makes me what to put a party together- :}
Happy Day
teresa’s last blog post..Made with Love-
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January 29th, 2009 at 10:20 am
What a fun pary and such amazing ideas! Thanks so much for sharing this with us. (Parties like this make me really want a girl!)
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January 29th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
WOW! What an absolutely awesome party idea! Makes me wish I had a daughter! Just wow.
Mama Goose’s last blog post..My Big Boy
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January 29th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Oh my word ~ that’s unbelieveable Donna! What a wonderful party planner you are.
My very most favorite part had to be the dress that was given to each little girl. They must have been ecstatic.
theArthurClan’s last blog post..No Thank You.
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January 29th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
That is an amazing party! So original, and nothing I ever would have thought of!
Minnesotamom’s last blog post..And then I go and totally redeem myself!
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January 30th, 2009 at 1:26 am
A. MAZING!!!
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January 30th, 2009 at 1:26 am
Now that’s a party! I host stuff ‘n fluff workshops, mostly at childcare centers but this party looked fabulous. She went all out, the dresses were adorable.
BTW I mentioned you in my post today with a link back.
BlissDom ‘09 here we come!
MommaDJane’s last blog post..BlissDom Here I Come!
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February 16th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Wow. I find this unbelievably offensive.
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February 17th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I’ve received some negative responses to this party by Donna Collins. It’s interesting how nobody leaves their email to respond back. I will leave the one by June above so you get the gist of the responses and why I am addressing this.
I for one love Chinese culture; food, art, etc and didn’t find this party at all offensive, nor did my Asian friends who saw it. Of course you can’t please everyone. Here is Donna’s response. Thanks- Amy
••••••••
My daughter picked the theme for her birthday because she was turning 8 which is a very lucky number in Chinese culture. She and I were both born the year of the Dragon and Sheridan LOVES dragons! Her favorite food is egg rolls so that is what we served. This was a very thoughtful party and not made to be a stereotype of a certain people.
I have always loved learning about different cultures and try to share as much of that love as I can with my children. My favorite class in college was Chinese Art History and I have nothing but respect for the Chinese people and their culture, I am a Brownie Girl Scout leader and a few weeks ago, I shared with them customs of the Chinese New Year.
This party was not to be offensive but to celebrate our love of the Chinese culture. I’m sorry if some people have taken offense to my daughter’s birthday celebration.
Donna
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February 22nd, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I’m sorry you got negative comments on this. I think it was a great idea. What a wonderful way to learn about another culture and to celebrate at the same time.
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March 29th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
i’m sorry you had negative replies. if anything, i think this party teaches kids about other cultures. love it!
In fact i’m going to plan one out for my little girl. would you be willing to share were i can get those pink dresses?
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April 13th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I bought the dresses in Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles.
Donna’s last blog post..Easter Cupcakes
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June 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
What a great party! I am very curious what the per person cost for this party was. My only concern (I wasn’t offended, just disappointed that the food wasn’t more ethnic) was that this party lends itself to the thinking that you have to spend a lot of money in order to have a great party. Even if in your mind you didn’t spend a lot of money, moms these days have REALLY limited party budgets. Could you do something like this under $200-$300? (everything included?)
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March 10th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
I think you did a fantastic job. Being Asian, I didn’t find anything offensive at all. We are doing a similar party for my daughter in April. It will be a mix of Chinese, Japanese, and probably some Texas themes and foods. We will have faux sushi rolls. I would love to do kimono’s and do a full Japanese theme, but those cost much more than the Chinese dresses. Sorry that some people had to be so negative.
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May 3rd, 2010 at 7:45 am
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! I love it. I was just thinking of something unique and creative and yours clearly was both. It was tastefully done and was more thoughtful than most parties my daughter has had or been to. Thank you for sharing such a wonderful idea and I’m glad your daughter and friends had such a nice time!
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May 28th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I found the ideas in the party really creative and amazed at the efforts made by Donna for her daughter. It shows how much she really loves her daughter and really do want to broaden her horizon for other cultures.
But I do want to touch on the subject about stereotyping.
This may not be the place to talk about racial issues and stereotyping different cultures, but I couldn’t help but feel that this needs to be addressed. I am an American born Chinese and I found this to be offensive. I can not speak for all Asians and Asians should not be put on a spot light to represent all who are Asian.
But having a Chinese Theme party would mean that you incorporated all things would be considered Chinese. Kimonos are Japanese. Fortune Cookies were made in the United States and aren’t authentically Chinese although Chinese restaurants use them. The font used is not Chinese. Chinese don’t usually have tea under pogodas nor use latterns.
I think when we do themes like this, it’s very important to not blend cultures together or put cultures in a box.
I know that Donna may not have intentionally to be offending anybody and she simply wanted to give her daughter the greatest 8th birthday possible.
But I know that the greatest gift we can do for our children is to not pass on stereotypes, but to expand our understanding for cultures we are not familiar with in a way where its not objectifying others. I truly believe we are all capable of learning and changing and hope that we can build that bridge together to meet one another as humans.
I would encourage others to continue to examine our own perceptions of one another… no matter which race we are.
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July 16th, 2010 at 11:02 am
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