For Boy Who Loves Tea Parties

My son loves to reenact scenes from his favorite movies, so when he asked me if he could have a tea set to go along with his play food set to reenact the scene below from Toy Story 3, I thought it would be an easy request to fill. 

Toy Story 3 movie- Bonnie introduces Woody to her other toys as they sit around a table near her play kitchen.

I figured I could find a simple, gender neutral tea set at my local Toys R Us but when we got there all they had were frilly pink and white sets with hearts, flowers or “girl themed” characters. Needless to say we didn't leave the store with any of those as my, then 3 year old, son turned up his nose and said "mommy those are for GIRLS". They learn gender stuff at such an early age but I was determined to bridge the gap so I went into my crafty mom mode and figured I could make him a set he would LOVE.

As I started to move boxes around just to be sure I didn’t mess anything I saw this set:

Here’s a picture from the website:

It’s a simple grey and white set that has a heart pattern on it but it’s molded into the plastic so it doesn’t stand out much. When I showed him the set he perked up a bit but was still skeptical because it had two girls on the front of the box. I saw that he wasn't very excited about it but I tossed the set in the cart knowing that I could jazz it up once we got home with the help of some left over stickers we had.

About a year ago I had purchased 2 sets of these stickers from Walgreens for $1.99:

They have the characters printed on clear stickers instead of white so that they will blend onto whatever surface they are applied to. I hadn't opened one of the sets so there was just enough stickers for me to make him a custom Toy Story tea set.

I waited for him to take his nap and went to work on my project. When he woke up I had the set laid out for him and once he realized what it was, he got so excited.

He played with it a lot in the beginning but after a year and his new love EVERYTHING Avengers, it only makes an appearance a few times a month. One day he asked his uncle if he wanted to play tea party with him and when his uncle responded "tea parties are for girls" he said, with conviction, "no they're not, anyone can drink tea, see look at mine." My 20 something year old brother looked at me and then back at the tea set, knowing he was just trumped, took a cup and played. When he takes it out he still smiles and gets excited about it and my heart beams to know that little by little I'm helping my son stand behind what he loves and get passed gender stereotypes. I'm sure it gets harder as they get older but for now he's still a little boy who loves tea parties.

Here are a few shots of my final project.