CHARLOTTE & BURLINGTON'S TEA PARTY

We invite you to the launch party of Charlotte & Burlington, the tale of an American doll and a very British Bear who will soon travel the world together. Charlotte sy Dimby and Burlington Bear & Friends have joined forces to create a unique partnership. We hope to bring the charm of this magical duo to you this summer.

Help us celebrate by creating your very own Charlotte & Burlington party, why not bring the City of Lights to your own garden? Picture your child in a pretty dress, (a Charlotte sy Dimby one or just a pretty twirling one) with her certificate (subscribe here if you have not received yours) and send us your party photos by Instagram or email at info@charlottesydimby.com

 

 

To mark the start of Charlotte & Burlington’s amazing adventures we have created the perfect afternoon tea to be enjoyed by all. To set the scene we enlisted the help of Pemberly Fox (London) who are passionate about craftsmanship and quality and really are the masters of beautiful stationary. The team at Pemberly Fox created a charming invitation which inspired us and hopefully you too. When the invitations arrived in the post they were everything I imagined they would be; elegant, simple and joyful. That is exactly what an invitation should be, it should set the scene and create suspense. The beauty of the invite should signal the beauty of the party to come.

We chose a garden party as there is nothing more charming than an afternoon spent in the garden, the table laid with thick white starched linen, jugs of flowers fresh from the garden and most importantly a table inspired by our two ambassadors, Charlotte and Burlington. The theme of the party was reflected from the outset by the invitation with the use of red, white and blue in the bunting and through Charlotte & Burlington’s clothes.

The centrepiece of the table was our unique themed cake laid on a Victorian silver cake stand adorned with red and white iced flowers, bunting repeated once again and Charlotte & Burlington holding a red balloon.

The cupcakes created by the Kitchen Mixer really were gorgeous, not only were they Burlington’s favourite carrot cake but they tasted as good as they looked. Decorated with a variety of different designs such as bunting, Burlington’s favourite red and white spotty bow-ties, a teddy bear naturally and a very simple red cherry.

Also on the table were homemade melting moments with a red cherry, a traditional english recipe!

Whenever it is a special occasion Burlington’s Cook always makes these delicious little biscuits and she has kindly given us the recipe to share with you. Sometimes Burlington helps but he gets in a sticky mess! You will find the recipe at the end of the page.

We also had Paris swirls which are a take on Viennese swirls. These little shortbreads with a French twist are suitable for bears and children. 

We have included the recipe at the end of the article for you to make for your family and friends.

To add to the beauty of the setting were the delightful biscuits created by Little Bird Bakes Cake Design which were inspired by Burlington and Charlotte and also the embroidery and dresses of Charlotte sy Dimby. Notice the delicate blue biscuits to match the background of the lavender blue dresses and the intricate flowers around the edges. Charlotte the doll loves embroidery so we really had to include this in the table setting.

 We love using proper porcelain rather than paper party plates. How lovely to drink tea in Gien china from Paris. 

A lovely table setting is all very well but it is the people who make it, especially little faces who were lucky enough to wear the beautiful matching signature Lavender Blue Princess Charlotte dresses from Charlotte sy Dimby. The girls are wearing the very same dress that Charlotte herself wears in the stories which made one little girl very happy and oh she did enjoy twirling around too. 

A simple bunch of red, blue and white balloons made a lovely montage. We were thrilled with the personalised balloons for Charlotte & Burlington provided by Party Pieces, founded by Carol Middleton. No party is complete without party hats either and what better design than simple spotty white and blue ones, inspired by Burlington’s love of polka dots. 

After a sumptuous feast of cake and biscuits, Burlington’s favourite Earl Grey tea and homemade Elderflower cocktails (non-alcoholic) for the children, party games were a must. We played the Paris posting game, it is a take on a traditional children’s posting game but themed for Charlotte & Burlington’s Paris! There are ten jam jars hidden all around the garden, each child and adult is given an envelope and inside the envelope is a series of Parisian pictures, the Eiffel Tower, the French flag, Charlotte & Burlington etc. The person who manages to post all their pictures in the correct jars is the winner, this game can be made harder or easier by using words instead of pictures but it really is a great little game and sometimes a real ice breaker at the beginning of a party. 

Burlington’s absolute favourite party game has always been pass the parcel. Each layer was wrapped between Parisian themed paper and London themed paper until the winner ripped open Barbars ultimate guide to Paris whilst listening to Edith Piaf!

The smallest children also enjoyed colouring our very own ambassadors, whilst the older ones had a lovely time making a posy on Charlotte’s flower stall. The stall is from Le Toy Van. Our lovely in house flower arranger helped create posies from a selection of flowers from the garden and showed the children how to make a simple posy. It was a great hit and something to take home from the party. 

The ultimate party gifts were individually wrapped cakes from the Kitchen Mixer with Burlington’s favourite red and white spotty ribbon and a complete set of his adventures. What better way to end a party with yet more cake and a story! 

Burlington and Charlotte are very polite and always say thank you, so we must finish our article on the perfect afternoon tea party and the importance of a thank you note. What would you write? Can you guess what Burlington might say using his very smart Pemberly Fox correspondence cards? 

To thank you for coming to the party, we have two recipes for you to download and our first French cooking lesson for you to listen to at home!

Download the Melting Moments recipe

Download the Parisian Swirls recipe

Listen to your French cooking lesson & download your French vocabulary card

To get to know you even better, why don’t you  make a Chinese portrait just like Charlotte and Burlington. You can take inspiration from here. Please send your portraits to info@charlottesydimby.com. We would love to see your finished portrait chinois! 

Download your template

 

We hope you enjoyed our virtual launch just as much as we did. We look forward to welcoming you to Paris soon but in the meantime why not create your very own Charlotte & Burlington Parisian themed afternoon tea party… 

Photo credits : Ellie

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