Tea And Treats

This month's Alpha Stamps theme is "Marie takes tea". It's all about Marie Antoinette in gorgeous dresses, plus lots of delicious looking treats. Mmmm!

I constructed a little tea shop, where Marie can pick out the perfect sweets for her afternoon tea with the girls. Marie's so happy, she's strung up some little flags and made a banner. Maybe she'll hang it on the windows of the shop.

 

The shop is constructed from 2" paper maché boxes with lids. I used two boxes for the lower shelves, and a box lid for the upper window.  The "curtains" are actually the skirt I cut off of a figure in the collage sheet. I attached it to a Panniers Dress shape cutout, and added the "Tea Party" heart and the clock. It was fun to adorn the shop with ball fringe and Dresden trim. 

Here's a photo of the back of the shop, where you can see how the dress shape cutout was the perfect shape to support not only the curtains, but also the heart and clock, plus all the little leaves surrounding the clock. You can also see how the flag was attached. I used a bit of E6000 to adhere it up at the top, but because of the ball fringe, I could only attach it at that one spot. To make it stable, I glued a little pink bead to the flat surface of the box and stuck the end of the toothpick flagpole into that bead. 

Look how adorable those little treats are! I gave all the paper treats some sparkly red Stickles accents, and glued a small red seed bead onto the top of each of the cupcakes, which also happen to be beads. The seed beads make perfect little cherries, and fit right into the holes in the cupcakes. I also glued a seed bead to the bottom of the heart shaped tart so it sits at an angle and can be seen more easily.

Here's the showpiece cake in the top window. It has lots of red Stickle cherries, and a little piece of lace serving as a doily. The little Tea Party heart was solid green, so I took a Sharpie marker to it and highlighted the raised areas in black.

What sweet little 3D bows! I used a silicone mold and some paper clay to create them. I painted them pink with little green polka dots, and gave them a coat of glaze to make them nice and shiny.

I was going to have the shop sitting right on the ground, but it really looked better taller, where Marie can reach it properly. My husband helped me cut a little piece of wood and some dowels for legs. I painted the top white (the pom pom trim will cover that) and the legs a nice blue green to match the Dresden trim and Tea Party heart. 

 

One more photo of Marie, so happy with her polka dotted bunting.  How does she stay so thin with all those tempting tarts and cupcakes so readily available?

Hope you can join Marie and me for tea! For a complete list of supplies, click here.