How to Throw a Mother's Day Tea on a Budget

For several years now I've wanted to have a Mother's Day Tea.  But somehow Mother's Day always managed to sneak up on me and by the time I thought about it, it was too late.  Well, not this year.  I designed some invitations and RSVP cards then had the kids color their invites and address their envelopes.  We gave them to our moms last week.  I want to make the day really special for my kids and their mom's or grandmas.

We've been talking a lot about our moms and why we love them.  Most kids said things like "She takes care of me", or "She reads to me"  May favorite one really surprised me, this little guy said, "Because she is the best mom I could ever dream of".  Isn't that the sweetest and cutest thing you've ever heard?

Last week my co-worker and I hit up the Dollar Store for most of our party needs. We had quite a long list and needed to be as budget minded as possible. We needed to throw a Mother's Day Tea on a Budget.

 For the Table settings, we found these pink and green table cloths.  They are thicker than the usual ones so we just might be able to reuse them

We also found these pretty napkins and paired them with just plain white dessert plates.

This week we will be working on our presents for our moms and some fun extras for our event on Friday. When the moms arrive they will be presented with their Mother's Day Bonnet custom-made by their child.  We are using paper plates and bowls that we already have.  After the kids paint them, we will be decorating them with the flower leis.  I bought 3 3-packs of leis.  I'll take them apart and the kids can glue the flowers onto their mom's hats.   I don't have a tutorial for you because I left the bowls and plates at school.  But all you need to do is cut a hole in the middle of the plate,  large enough to fit over the bowl when it is upside down.  If it fits, then glue the two pieces together.  After the kids paint them, attach flowers, ribbons or stickers.

I also bought large white cups.  The kids will each decorate a cup for their mom using stickers.

Another easy and artsy decoration will be the flowers the kids make to present to their moms.  Using coffee  filters and markers your can create beautiful flowers.  First, color the filters with markers.  Then  spray them with water and let dry.  You will want to lay them on a plastic table cloth or wax paper to prevent the ink from staining as it runs off and seeps through the filter.  Once they are dry attach them to skewers, straws or pipe cleaners.   You can add leaves with each child name to the stem if you'd like.    We will placing these in groups on the tables in vases.  I made a few samples to show you what they look like before we assemble them.

For the gifts, we are taking photos of the kids and attaching them to foam sheets- they were all out of the foam photo frames so we had to improvise. The kids will decorate the foam around the photo using sticky foam pieces.

The Food was easy as well.  We found boxes of fruit flavored tea, large bottles of iced tea, and packages of cookies.

It doesn't take much planning, just a quick trip to the Dollar Store and you too can throw a Mother's Day Tea on a Budget for under $25.00