Holiday Tea Party

It may be early to start thinking about Christmas, but it is definitely on my mind!

I am part of a team of women who are organizing an evangelistic event for our church. This year we will host our 3rd Holiday Tea Party! The Holiday Tea is an event where a woman hosts a table with 10 seats. As a host, she decorates the table and invites 9 friends to join her for the event. We have the event as an outreach to our friends and neighbors. We pray that it energizes and inspires women as it draws us into our Lord's presence and dedicates the season to the memory of Christ's birth and His relevance in our lives.

This year our guest speaker is Tammy Maltby. She will share with us ideas from her book, The Christmas Kitchen: The Gathering Place for Making Memories. The book is awesome and we are so excited to have her join us!

As we excitedly begin planning for this year's Tea, I wanted to share some pictures from last year's event. These tables were each created by a different woman from my church. And, these beautiful photographs were taken by Steve Wampler and Matt Youngblood. To learn more about Steve's photography visit his site.

These tables are exquisite and inspire me when I think about table settings for holiday parties.

Table settings

Chair Decorations

Napkin Rings

Party Favor Ideas













The Delicious Food

Holiday Tea Party, part 2

Pictures from the table I hosted at the 2009 Holiday Tea

Last Year's Classroom

This month I will post a few detours from the normal postings. With the start of school fast approaching I am getting back into the swing of things!

I need to decorate my classroom, write lesson plans, buy pencils and dry erase markers, buy a new tote bag (llbean is the best!) and pick out a new first day of school outfit (Oh, yes! I still do that!)

Yesterday I started decorating my classroom. While working on it I reminisced with my sister about about last year's room...

The color theme was turquoise and lime.

I made a welcome banner for outside the door.
more banner ideas here

stepping inside the room

one of the table arrangements
on each of the boards is a banner I made ('welcome' and 'assignments')

the back wall

welcome desk
with tardy sign-in clip boards and behavior clip boards
I made the table runner to match the tablecloth and curtains

supplies station
I made this tablecloth to match the room colors and curtains

the snap cups and prayer request basket

my desk area

the curtains
tutorial coming soon

view of room

close-up of stars bulletin board

I taught math, science and computer. And kept lesson plans on separate clip boards.

Since this blog is all about hospitality, I would say that my goal when setting up this room was to post welcome signs outside the door, and for the first month I had the banner on the white board at the front of the room. Also, I used bright colors to make it a cheery place. Of course, the best hospitality goes beyond setting the scene--and includes making people feel welcome and important. I had an awesome year getting to know last year's group of kids and look forward to seeing them again soon!

Pictures of this year's room, excellent math teacher websites/blogs I love, and pictures of my teacher-themed party coming soon!