Par-Tea On: A Stampington Soiree!

Our advertising and editorial teams laughed, planned, and toasted to creativity over cups of spiced tea and trays of decadent treats. Laura Burns, our fantastic advertising sales manager, gives us the inside scoop on the preparation that went into planning this gathering of artistic minds.

Working at Stampington & Company, it is so easy to be inspired by the creativity that surrounds us. When we marked our calendar for a meeting with the talented editorial team, we knew we wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to show them our artistic side. Elizabeth Komatsu (Advertising Assistant Manager), Melissa Mercer (Advertising Account Executive), Ashleigh Fleury (Advertising and Marketing Assistant) and I challenged ourselves to surprise the editors with some crafty projects of our own and plan a tea party they would never forget!

No artistic party would be complete without a color scheme, so we decided upon turquoise and coral. We browsed Pinterest for décor ideas, creating a mood board in our office. We shopped in local Goodwill and thrift stores and found vintage tea cups, vases, and plates. Next, we raided the Stampington prop room with the blessing of our director of photography, Johanna, and found lovely linens and antique silver teapots to adorn our table. You’d be amazed to see the unique items we have on hand on a daily basis.

We planned a craft night that Friday to create decorations for the party. First, we hit Michaels for supplies: paper, tissue paper, doilies, ribbon, and decorative adhesive tape. We used a Silhouette machine to cut the lettering, teapot, and tea cups out of paper, which we strung on aqua baker’s twine. A Fiskars punch was used to create elegant borders on our banner and placemats, which were adorned with vintage silverware and teapot designs printed from templates found on The Pretty Blog. We made the pompoms using just tissue paper and ribbon. To create a fun display for the selection of teas, we cut out teapot ephemera, framed it with decorative adhesive tape, and attached it to the inside of a vintage wooden box that we borrowed from the prop room. We constructed cardboard separators to fit between the rows of teas and cut out images from each tea box to display the different flavors.

We returned to the office the following week and set up our handmade décor and homemade goodies. Our selection of savory bite-sized tea sandwiches included delicious ingredients: ham and cheese; roasted red pepper, dill, and cream cheese; and cucumber, dill and cream cheese. To appease everyone’s sweet tooth, we baked mini cinnamon buns and mini vanilla cupcakes, topped with cream cheese frosting and rainbow sprinkles. We constructed tasty fruit skewers of pineapple, melon, grapes and strawberries to incorporate a burst of juicy produce. We arranged the spread of delicious treats on plates and platters covered in colored doilies. Add a vase of bright Gerber daisies, cue the elegant music, and we were ready to start the par-tea!

The editors were surprised and delighted to see that a fancy tea party had replaced our ordinary meeting. Collaborating with coworkers and enjoying tasty treats was a wonderful way to start the morning and get our creative juices flowing.

Thanks for sharing, Laura! Pick up a copy of Mingle Spring ’12 for more inspiring party projects, stories, and tips on how to throw your own creative soiree (spoiler alert: look out for more pictures from this tea party in an upcoming issue). Way to go, Ad Team. Par-tea on!

Comment below with your best creative party idea for a chance to win the premiere issue. The editor of Mingle will pick the most innovative one. Best of luck!

Photographs by Johanna Love

 

*Contest is open to U.S. residents only. Deadline for entries is 8/12/12 at 11:59 p.m.

 

Update from Christen Olivarez, Editor-in-Chief and Director of Publishing: My choice is HawaiianLibrarian’s Colorful Crafty Gal Pals’ Night Out! I love the idea of focusing so much on one color. I can only imagine how bright and colorful it could be!

 

Congratulations, HawaiianLibrarian! We will be in contact with you regarding your prize.

 

 


Posted: Monday, July 30th, 2012 @ 9:43 am
Categories: Uncategorized.
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18 Responses to “Par-Tea On: A Stampington Soiree!”

  1. Ella says:

    What a fun tea party! I see lots of creativitea ;D

    What about a Blue Moon Party! I think the next one is in August. You could invite your guest to bring their favorite comfort food. You know what you like to eat, when a bit blue. Then everyone shows up in their pajamas with their blue, I mean comfort food. You can decorate with blue, white, silver, pale yellow and orange(Harvest moon). Think of all the phases of the moon. You could have blue chips and dips, pears with blue cheese, and make a salad and a blueberry dessert. I think it would turn out bluetifully! ;D

  2. Mrs D says:

    Drat!! why don’t I live in the USA!!

  3. Mary Wilkins says:

    This is such a cute tea party that you have shown! I am not the party type, but two friends and I did a bridal shower several years ago that was fun: we had cucumber sandwiches that were cut out like flowers, shrimp spread on crackers, chili in huge mugs, cute handmade spiral sandwiches, pickled carrots, and a nice white cake. We drank lemonade with fancy flower ice cubes. We kept the colors in silver and white including the mugs for the chili. We used white flowers and antique lace for the main table and on the side tables. Really a fun shower.

  4. This is so charming! Who wouldn’t feel special invited to this?

  5. Eve says:

    I went to two tea parties this weekend. One at a tea house and one I co-hosted for a birthday party.
    The party theme was Alice in Wonderland’s tea party and everyone dressed up as one of the characters. We had a great time!

  6. Ella says:

    Can I post more than one party idea?
    Thank you ;D

  7. Ella says:

    When my children were little, we use to have a themed dinner once a week. We would pick a country and make art to represent this area. Then we would try to use what we had on hand to decorate the table. We would go to the library and read books from that area. We would build our menu, from cookbooks and online recipes. Somehow it magically all came together. Sometimes we would try to learn the language of the area we studied. My son’s favorite was Japan. My daughter loved Italian~ We have fond memories of our journeys at the table! :D

  8. Jackie says:

    Here is an idea for a blast from the past tea party…How about having the guests dress in something from their favorite decade? Ask friends (who have teapots) to bring their teapot to the party and brew several different flavors of tea. Enjoy sandwiches made from different types of bread (white, wheat, rye, etc) made by cutting out circles and use cream cheese that has been colored with food coloring to frost the sandwich to look like a little cake. Top the sandwich with an editable flower. Have a tray of candy from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, etc to celebrate each decade. Play a mix of music denoting each decade. Make up your own little cards of “table topics” to start the conversation down memory lane and have a blast from the past.

  9. Kathy Z says:

    I hosted a 50th birthday party for my brother. Not only was it a surprise for him, but I made 50 cupcakes, frosted them in black, and on EACH cupcake I had a small photograph (inchie) from his life, all fifty years in pictures! It was a beautiful centerpiece and didn’t get eaten until my brother and all our guests reminisced! { I used toothpicks with the mini photos!}

  10. KM says:

    Academy Awards Party: Start with a red “carpet” at the entry (you can use a red plastic runner held down with dbl sided tape); someone with a flash camera taking pictures as guests enter (maybe a Fuji Instax). Decorations with a particular movie theme, or maybe black and gold or silver. Food must have been eaten in, or suggested by, any nominated movie – good for a potluck. Have everyone complete a ballot before arriving. The person who chose the most winners receives a gift basket with a DVD of a best picture movie, champagne, etc.

  11. HawaiianLibrarian says:

    Colorful Crafty Gal Pals Night Out! Everyone dresses in their favorite color, brings a sweet or savory snack in that color (challenging if blue is your favorite color!), and prepares a make-it-take-it [miti] activity featuring that color. Hostess provides mineral water and club soda w/ sliced fruits and/or colorful syrups. Might limit to a dozen gal pals b/c at 10 minutes per miti that’ll be 2 hours of crafting fun, and there’s still food to eat!

  12. Sue says:

    I once booked a Mary Kay party for a friend that had just become consultant. I decided to make it a Mary Kay Tea Party and wow, did it ever turn out to be a great success! I We had all the little teacups and saucers, nothing matched but they were all beautiful. Teapots with different kinds of tea, little sugar cubes with tiny little roses on top, tea sandwiches, even sugared violas and handcrafted butter mints. It was a lot of fun and a great start for the new consultant in her Mary Kay career.

  13. Helen says:

    What a delight! I love and dream of tea parties!! I love the decorating, baking and the fun of the planning. Everything I saw from this post is a fantastic new idea!!! Tea parties with anyone
    (including husbands and sons) are fun ! Everyone is relaxed and the laughter and sharing warms my heart! I love themed parties…Alice in wonderland….Paris, British etc….I love little craft ideas to send home made as a gift with directions…Sometimes we make the whole tea together in my kitchen. Tea any time is filled with charm for the soul!!

  14. Linda Warrick says:

    This is wonderful! Alway wanted to go all out for a tea party…might just be the inspiration I needed!!

  15. I love a party with a swap! Each attendee brings a fun item to swap with the other guests. The hostess creates a container for all the swap items to go in. For a tea party, I’d pick up some vintage teapots at the flea market,adorn them with ribbon and paper flowers and then pass them out to my attendees. They could then fill them with items swapped from the other participants. It is a great momento for them to take home after the get together but also, it can be a great way to spark creatvity after the party has concluded.

  16. I seriously love your website.. Great colors & theme. Did you build this web site yourself? Please reply back as I’m hoping to create my very own website and would love to find out where you got this from or what the theme is called. Appreciate it!

  17. Harry Ostler says:

    His lad trips. A brigade will come close to a shorthand ratio. The chattering fortunate flows over. His intense cigarette smoker humors an excess above the place of worship roundabout. Beside the load advances the float. The baby blanket hands the sufficient ideology within a ingredient.

Jordan Uncategorized

Our advertising and editorial teams laughed, planned, and toasted to creativity over cups of spiced tea and trays of decadent treats. Laura Burns, our fantastic advertising sales manager, gives us the inside scoop on the preparation that went into planning this gathering of artistic minds.

Working at Stampington & Company, it is so easy to be inspired by the creativity that surrounds us. When we marked our calendar for a meeting with the talented editorial team, we knew we wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to show them our artistic side. Elizabeth Komatsu (Advertising Assistant Manager), Melissa Mercer (Advertising Account Executive), Ashleigh Fleury (Advertising and Marketing Assistant) and I challenged ourselves to surprise the editors with some crafty projects of our own and plan a tea party they would never forget!

No artistic party would be complete without a color scheme, so we decided upon turquoise and coral. We browsed Pinterest for décor ideas, creating a mood board in our office. We shopped in local Goodwill and thrift stores and found vintage tea cups, vases, and plates. Next, we raided the Stampington prop room with the blessing of our director of photography, Johanna, and found lovely linens and antique silver teapots to adorn our table. You’d be amazed to see the unique items we have on hand on a daily basis.

We planned a craft night that Friday to create decorations for the party. First, we hit Michaels for supplies: paper, tissue paper, doilies, ribbon, and decorative adhesive tape. We used a Silhouette machine to cut the lettering, teapot, and tea cups out of paper, which we strung on aqua baker’s twine. A Fiskars punch was used to create elegant borders on our banner and placemats, which were adorned with vintage silverware and teapot designs printed from templates found on The Pretty Blog. We made the pompoms using just tissue paper and ribbon. To create a fun display for the selection of teas, we cut out teapot ephemera, framed it with decorative adhesive tape, and attached it to the inside of a vintage wooden box that we borrowed from the prop room. We constructed cardboard separators to fit between the rows of teas and cut out images from each tea box to display the different flavors.

We returned to the office the following week and set up our handmade décor and homemade goodies. Our selection of savory bite-sized tea sandwiches included delicious ingredients: ham and cheese; roasted red pepper, dill, and cream cheese; and cucumber, dill and cream cheese. To appease everyone’s sweet tooth, we baked mini cinnamon buns and mini vanilla cupcakes, topped with cream cheese frosting and rainbow sprinkles. We constructed tasty fruit skewers of pineapple, melon, grapes and strawberries to incorporate a burst of juicy produce. We arranged the spread of delicious treats on plates and platters covered in colored doilies. Add a vase of bright Gerber daisies, cue the elegant music, and we were ready to start the par-tea!

The editors were surprised and delighted to see that a fancy tea party had replaced our ordinary meeting. Collaborating with coworkers and enjoying tasty treats was a wonderful way to start the morning and get our creative juices flowing.

Thanks for sharing, Laura! Pick up a copy of Mingle Spring ’12 for more inspiring party projects, stories, and tips on how to throw your own creative soiree (spoiler alert: look out for more pictures from this tea party in an upcoming issue). Way to go, Ad Team. Par-tea on!

Comment below with your best creative party idea for a chance to win the premiere issue. The editor of Mingle will pick the most innovative one. Best of luck!

Photographs by Johanna Love

 

*Contest is open to U.S. residents only. Deadline for entries is 8/12/12 at 11:59 p.m.

 

Update from Christen Olivarez, Editor-in-Chief and Director of Publishing: My choice is HawaiianLibrarian’s Colorful Crafty Gal Pals’ Night Out! I love the idea of focusing so much on one color. I can only imagine how bright and colorful it could be!

 

Congratulations, HawaiianLibrarian! We will be in contact with you regarding your prize.