The Witch's Tea

Quick story before I get into this post.
This took me forever! I'm not sure if I just wasn't feeling it or what. Overall, I like my ideas and such but my execution wasn't the best. BUT, I'm sharing it anyway. I'm sure you crafty types can improve muchly upon it.

Today I'm sharing a party idea for Halloween...or anytime you wanna get the witches together. The idea of a witches tea party isn't new but here's my version.

First, the invitation:

My first attempt was WAYYYYY too complicated so I started over from scratch and came up with this. Tentacles and tea; what could be better?

Then, I made some décor:

Black candles: I found this idea on Pinterest...it's been in circulation for awhile. But I finally decided to make them. Nailed it! Sort of.

See, the painting and cardboard tubes (toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls) were no problem. The hot glue thing worked great as well and was relatively easy. Even painting the little LEDs worked fine with regular acrylic paint; you don't need any special paint to cover them. The one thing that was a problem was the fact that my lights were smaller than most of the openings of the tubes. Which meant that you'd HAVE to glue them in for them to stay at the top of the candle. If I did that, I wouldn't be able to reach the switch that turns them on. Now that is all well and good if you don't want the candle to light up...just as a décor item in the daylight. But I didn't quite see the point of that. I mean, Halloween parties happen after dark for us adults. So I solved the problem by cutting small cardboard circles to fit inside the tube. I shoved them down inside just far enough to allow the light to sit flush with the top edge of the tube. I cut mine so they fit tightly and I didn't have to glue it in but you could, if you needed to. So those lights are removable and you can flip the switch on the bottom to light them and just set them on the top.

 Spooky eggs:  Not sure if this fits well into my party but I decided to make some spooky eggs with plastic eggs and alcohol ink.  I figured that those crafty witches would make something like this for Halloween. Maybe they'd even hide them like we do on Easter. Or maybe they'd just throw in some glow sticks for a little spooky décor. I have LOADS of these white plastic eggs and just used alcohol ink to smoosh all over them; I used black and green for mine.

You'll also see in some of the photos the other eggs I tried out. I made eyeballs out of them and propped them up on little rings I cut off the cardboard tubes. I just used Sharpies to draw the eyeball details on them. Sharpies are a great way to decorate these little eggs. I might have made more eyeballs as the eggs could be made to glow but I liked my other eyes better.

PomPom Eyeballs:  I love making pompoms but I never really have anything to do with them. Like I just collect them...they seem to just pile up like tribbles. I saw another Pinterest idea that looked easy enough and it was. Directions were easy to follow and I got EYEBALLS! I made green ones and red ones and most are only about 1.5 inches. I have pompom makers but I've seen tutorials for making your own out of cardboard. I thought these added a festive touch. I left the strings on the back so if I wanted to make a garland out of them or use them to tie around the favors, I could.


Speaking of favors/treats:

Spell casting station:  Witches would gather together and swap spells, right? So I made up a little spell casting area with loads of ingredients and what they might represent in a spell. I also made up a little spell card with 4 "beginner" spells to get guests started with mixing and matching their treats.

I placed the treats in mason jars and large black cauldrons as well as a couple of larger apothecary like jars that I had. I also made little tags to label all the ingredients with their "meaning". It makes a bit of sense when you see the spells. (I had a plan to add several wands to the equation but ran out of motivation. Did I tell you that this took forever?)

I printed out my spells on a 4.25 X 5.5 paper and just dressed it up a bit. There's two spells on each side and I printed out 4 as that filled an 8.5 X 11 sheet of paper. So the spell cards could be given to each guest as part of the favor. The little candy cauldrons are where you would mix the ingredients to the spell and then you'd pass a wand over it and recite the spell. It's too much info to add to this post but I'll put it on a separate page for anyone who would like to look at the specifics. (Feel free to use them for your own parties but please don't copy and sell them. Thanks!)

Menu ideas:

I didn't make anything in particular for this party as I wasn't actually having a party. So here's some of the menu items I was thinking would work well for this little affair. It's just a tea party so drinks and little snacks and sweets would be all that is necessary. Just enough to curb an appetite or indulge in some treats while catching up with the other witches on the block.

Witchy Brew: any variety of teas

Wicked Hot Chocolate (for the non-tea drinkers)

Finger Sand-witches

Deviled Eggs

Bony Breadsticks

Black Cat Brownies

Sugar Cookies (cut into Halloween shapes)

Ghastly Gingerbread

Most of the sweets can be made from boxed mixes and any sandwich cut up into small bite sized pieces (with the crust removed) will work here. If your peeps like coffee or apple cider, these also make good additions to the drink line-up. While I was going for a simple and quick menu, you could always add caramel or candy apples...or dunked apple slices as those fit well into the theme. 

 Don't forget to use the décor you already have to make the setting feel right. I have lots of potion bottles from the craft store, another large eyeball, and loads of old books that fit the theme. (If you can't see those book titles...from the bottom up: Superstitious, The Witch's Bridge, Night Watch, Magic and Science, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Collection.)

I also dressed up my background with some canvas' I made this year. You'll see "Morella" and "Wonders of a Witch" in the back. The creepy carriage picture is actually something my Mom had and if you look close enough, you can see a cupid in there. But I thought the carriage looked more creepy and along with everything else, you hardly notice.

Thanks for dropping by on my birthday! (Yup, today's the big day.)

Please come back again for more Halloween projects. New project every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, with a bonus Friday and Halloween Wednesday, of course.

-Wy

"You say "wicked" like it's a bad thing."