First Day of Fall

Happy Fall!  I can't think of a better way to begin the first day of Fall than by sharing photos of the Ladies' Fall Tea that I coordinated at my church yesterday.

It's the reason I've been missing from my blog for awhile because work began long before yesterday's tea.  Once I determined the theme - "Broken Vessel Restoration" - preparations began. We don't usually think of ourselves as clay vessels, but Biblically we are since God formed our first parents, Adam and Eve, out of the dust/clay of the earth and breathed life in them. Because of their sin we all came into this world broken and in need of restoration by the Heavenly Father, our "potter."

I removed the spring flowers from the tiered servers and replaced them with fall flowers.

I ordered small terra cotta flower pots [in keeping with the pottery theme] for favors, and filled them with Chex Mix. [The recipe is on the box of Chex Cereal].  Yum!  It's addicting!  Below is a tray just out of the oven.

Ephesians 2:10 was attached to each flower pot: "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Two boxes of favors finished and ready to go!

I ordered 'Ancient Clay Pots' fabric from Spoonflower to go on the assigned table board as well as in the center of each table and to decorate the table number cards.

We don't have a lot of storage space at church, so all the tea equipage gets stored in my basement. Which means bringing all the totes and boxes upstairs and transporting them to the church.  What a job for my hubby!  Glassware is heavy, but he's a trooper!  He's a great help with these teas. Our garage looked like we were moving, and it took both of our cars to transport everything   When the teas are over the process is repeated in reverse, except it takes me a day or two before I'm ready to tackle washing all the teacups and other equipage and neatly repacking it for next time.  As I type this post, all those totes and boxes are sitting in the garage waiting for me to get busy tomorrow!

Since I had to work at The Whitney on Friday, we went to the church on Thursday to set-up. My dear friend, Lori Bloss [and her husband], met us there to help with set-up.  She's my right-hand in any and all my tea endeavors and I appreciate her so much.

~ My 'bestie' and me ~

The tea had a 12:00 noon arrival time with serving at 12:30.  My hubby and I arrived at the church at 10:30 a.m. and our wonderful caterer, Francine of Pamela's Catering arrived with her helper shortly after as well as Lori.  While Lori filled water goblets with ice and put milk in the creamers, I got busy brewing the tea - Harney & Sons Hot Cinnamon Spice and Pumpkin Spice Decaf, and the caterer began plating the food.  We were an efficient team.

Menu:  Chicken Salad Mini Croissants, Cucumber Sandwiches, and Ham Salad in Phyllo Cups.  Scones were Blueberry and Raspberry with Mock Devonshire Cream.  I only charge our ladies $25 so it's really a bargain.  

Desserts were: Brownies, Spice Cake Pops [without the sucker sticks], Strawberry and Chocolate Cheesecake Bites and Linzer Cookies.  Are you hungary yet?  ;-)

Lori and my hubby were photographers for the tea and got some really good pictures of the ladies at their tables.  The ages of ladies were well mixed.

After the meal I gave a brief devotion about how God our potter molds us into His purpose and plan for us.

We closed with one of the ladies from our 'Mother Church' [the church who helped sponsor us as a new church plant 21 years ago] leading us in the chorus of 'Something Beautiful."

Below is a picture of Linda [the lady who sang] along with Lori, her husband, Rick, and the oldest lady in attendance [96 years old].

And the 2024 Ladies' Fall Tea is in the books!  I have a while to rest-up before thinking about a spring 2025 tea!