Vintage Strawberry Shortcake Party

{Real Parties}

8 months of planning (and being asked almost daily, "is it my birthday yet?" by my daughter,) and the Vintage Strawberry Shortcake party was a success!
Thank you so much to the following people:
The Thompson House Inn Tea Room (Cee Dolenc is such a sweetheart!)
Susannah Storch Photography (there are a mix of her photos and mine in this post but I am sure that you will be able to tell whose are whose.)
The Dickens Tavern who provided the scrumptious strawberry shortcake desserts, my photos do NOT do them justice.
and Shop Sweet Lulu for the majority of the party supplies.

I designed the vintage Strawberry Shortcake invitations using clip art and scalloped cards and smaller lined envelopes holding the RSVP card.  36" red and pink balloons with streamer tails guided the way to Hailey's 5th birthday party.

I chose the Thompson House Inn as our venue because they offer a "Cream Tea Service" in their cute little tea room complete with tea, sugar, cream, finger sandwiches and scones.  Cee allows the guests to rummage through hats, scarves, gloves and "pearls" upon their arrival to get ready for the tea.  One the girls are seated at the table, their hands are washed with a steam, rose-scented cloth and are told about proper tea etiquette.  

Cee set the table so nicely for us with color-coordinated linens, china and napkin rings.  Glassware had ice water, tea cups with tea and I brought mason jars filled with strawberry lemonade.

I love these mason jar daisy-cut lids, (ask me if you need help finding them,) and I will never tire of striped paper straws.  Each place setting had a paper cup filled with strawberry fruit snacks.  I made the place cards myself with colored cardstock and little plastic red buttons.

Ebay served as an invaluable resource when looking for vintage (or vintage looking) Strawberry Shortcake finds.  Except the fabric, which I used as a table topper and to top the favor mason jars, my daughter found at Hobby Lobby.  And she also now knows what "vintage" means.  If you don't have a little girl, you may not know that they have re-done the Strawberry Shortcake that was popular in my childhood, to a cartoony-er version, and I don't think, nearly as cute! The girls played some "berry fun" games, such as a Strawberry Turnover memory game in the parlor while we got dessert ready.

There was no way that we were going to serve regular, old, birthday cake at a Strawberry Shortcake party!  And, it just so happened that my work, makes the best strawberry shortcake in town!  I had them make smaller, individual portions and served them in disposable bowls with lids (many of our small guests chose to take their leftovers home with them, so that made it even easier.  

Little hands could hardly wait to pick up a variety of favors that awaited them on their way out the door.

Guests left with a jar of home-made Strawberry play dough (find the recipe in another one of my posts,) a variety of candy, including strawberry gummies, strawberry bon-bons and strawberry ring pops.  I also made a few strawberry-themed hair accessories and places in mini wooden berry baskets.

I think that everyone had a "berry" good time!  Feel free to leave your comment below and tell me what you think.  Do you remember Strawberry Shortcake from when you were a kid?