Alice In Wonderland Party 6yr - Tea Party

My daughter's 6th birthday was a Alice in Wonderland theme. There is little to no decorations to buy in this theme, so I had to make them all by myself.

INVITAIONS: I used the computer and printed in red ink on white cardstock The Queen of Hearts hereby summons you to attend Madelyn's 6th Very Merry Unbirthday Party. Don't be late for this very important date…or off with your head! And the party info was listed below it. This was cut out in a square, then glued on red cardstock which was cut/folded to make a envelope which opened out to show this. It was closed by a AIW sticker. On the front I printed out on label stickers saying Open Me!

DECORATIONS: As I said before there are no commercially available decorations so I had to make my own. Which was a lot of fun planning! The birthday girl was dressed in an Alice costume which I made for $20.00 (she also used it for a halloween costume before her party). Her sister was the queen of hearts (bought it, she used it for halloween too). I bought a mad hatter hat off ebay and was dressed as that. I held the party at home, so I separated it into two rooms. The living room, which was done in the Queen of Hearts garden theme and in the kitchen, which was done in the Mad Hatter Tea Party theme.

The Queen of Hearts themed room I already had two large ivy topairy trees on the fireplace mantle. I made two more large topairy trees using two medium and two large sized styrafoam balls, wooden dowel, two ceramic planters, fake ivy leaves, fake red roses and plaster of paris. Most of which I bought at the dollar store. I painted the balls a dark green and the dowels brown. I cut the dowel at a 45 degree angle and then pushed it thru the large ball firt and then the medium sized ball, leaving a space between them. I poured plaster of paris into the planters (you could also use styrafoam blocks too). I used green tape to tape off the center of the planter and placed the dowel with the balls in it. The tape keeps the dowel sraight while the plaster dries. Leave overnight to dry. I then hot glued ivy leaves all over the balls. You can leave a few branches to fall out over the bottom. I then pinned in red roses all over. I didn't hot glue the roses so I could take them off after the party and keep the topairy trees out(which turned out really nice). I made two large rose trees out of cardboard from a fridge box. I copied the style of tree from the original AIW illustrations. I painted them green/brown. I used a darker brown marker on the trunk to make it look like wood. I hot glued fabric leaves in various places all over. I hot glued red roses all over on one tree and on the other I glued half the tree with red roses and I glued a few white roses on the bottom part. I painted a couple of white roses halfway with red paint.

Next to that tree I made a card man who was holding a paintbrush next to the half painted roses. I used a full sheet of white poster board for the body. On another sheet I drew out a face, arms, legs, shoes and gloves. I copied the cardmen from Disney's AIW movie. I used the spade. The face is a spade shape. I drew a spade on the middle of the body and an A in the corners. Make sure to have the bottom corner upside down.  I colored them with a black marker. The gloves and shoes I drew free hand and painted them black as well. The body was glued together and the card man was taped to the wall next to the tree. With his arm bent to look like he was painting the roses. His paintbrush was made out of the posterboard and painted to look like it was dipped in red paint. I made my own garland streamers out of red ribbon (1 1/2 inch thick). I printed off AIW characters on cardstock(from the internet). They were from the original Lewis Carol book and were approx. 6 inches long. I cut them out and hole punched the top of them.

I also took a pack of jumbo playing cards and hole punched the top of them and feed the ribbon thru them alternating between a card and a character, leaving a space between them. At the ends of the garlands I hot glued red roses. These were hung at the window and the fireplace mantle. I hung large tissue paper roses from the ceiling in the center of the room. I had dishes/bowls shaped liked the card suits which had red/black candy in them on the end tables. The kitchen: I used poster board and paint to make a tree that was taped beside the door in between the two rooms. It was in several pieces, so I statigically placed sign's, (that were also painted on posterboard in various bright colors) at the join sites. They said This Way,That Way, Wrong Way. On a branch I made/painted a posterboard chesire cat (disney's AIW version). I used the marker again to make the trunk/branches look like real wood. At the base of the tree I took  a few jumbo flowers (bought at the dollar store) and tacked them to the wall. Across the room I made/painted another poster board tree (small one) which had a couple more sign's which said Not Here, Not There. I tacked some more flowers to the base of this.

The table was draped in a fushia pink tablecloth. I used my own teacups/saucers and teapot. I made tags that were attached to the teacup handles that said Drink Me. These were placed all around the table. I had orange plastic plates with yellow napkins and purple cutlery. I made gerber daisy chocolate flowers in pink/yellow/blue and orange. They were in baggies, tied with ribbon and a tag that said EAT ME. They were put on the plates at each seating. I had a 3 teired stand that had various cookies made/bought and another stand which had various types of sandwhiches which were cut out with card suit shapes cookie cutters(diamonds, hearts, clubs and Spades). It wasted a good bit of bread, but most of it was crusts, which they don't eat anyway!

The presentation was worth it! Also on the table was a paper mache teapot with the doormouse peeking out and a large 3 tiered topsy turvey cake. The teapot was made by blowing up a balloon and paper macheing that, once it dries take some newspaper and twist it together and then shape it to make a handle and spout. Use masking tape and taped around it to hold the shape, and then tape these to the teapot. I use modeling clay and rolled it out to make 2 circle bracelets, one for the base to keep the pot from tipping over. And one to go around the lid of the top. As well as a ball shaped one to use as knob to pick up the lid. These dried for a night then it was all painted to look like the teapot that was in the movie. I cut out the lid and hot glued the knob to the top and the circle to the lip of the lid. I glued the lid to the teapot leaving a small opening to poke the mouse out. The smaller circle was glued to the base of the teapot.

The Cake I really wanted to make a real cake but in order to make a topsy turvey cake you need to use pound cake( which the kids don't like) and various dowels and plates for structure( expensive). So I used the fake styrafoam wedding cake rounds. I bought 2 of each size. I took one of each size and using a saw I cut them in half lengthwise on an 45 degree angle(do outdoors, very messy!). I then glued them to the other one that was that size. Then, I stacked them on top of each other making sure to alternate the side that was angled/cut in order to get that topsy turvy look. I hot glued all of these together. I took fun foam and cut out a large circle that was bigger than the bottom layer. This was glued to the bottom, and then placed on a tray. The bottom layer was iced in a bright green, as well as the fun foam. This looked like the mad hatter's hat. I used a strip of yellow poster board and put it around the bottom of the cake and made a white card that said In This Style 10/6 . This was tucked behind the trim off to the side.

The next layer was done in pink icing. I used purple fondant to make stripes all around, and pink balls around the base. I had white fondant to make a chesire grin and that was put on the longer side of the cake, and finally the top layer was iced in yellow. I made orange fondant balls to go all around the base and with the leftover orange/purple and some pink fondant I made flat polkadots in various sizes that were randomly placed all over the cake. I had these long twirly candles on the top of the cake( pink, yellow and green). The cake was done a few days before the party so the icing hardened a bit and it looked like I did the whole cake in fondant. Great effect! Above the table I had various shapes/colors/sizes of paper latterns hung up with fishing line at different heights . So they looked like they were floating over the table. I used all the same colors to decorate in the kitchen right down to the paint colors on the sign's. Fushia pink, yellow, tourquise blue, orange, bright green and purple. I think it pulls it all together and makes it look that much better when you do that!

FOOD: As I already said, I had various cookies and sandwiches. I had hot chocolate or apple juice in the teapots. I used colored mini marshmellows for the sugar lumps. The girls were great with the teacups, none were broken or chipped. I made cupcakes in lew of cake. They were done with the same icing as the cake. I wrote EAT ME! Across the top. Each girl got a candle on it, we lit them and sang the merry unbirthday song.

GAMES: The first game we played was Croquet, wonderland style! I bought inflatable pink flamingo's at the dollar store as well as different colored balls. I used a black marker and drew hedgehog faces on the balls freehand. Out of white poster board I made playing cards about 8x10 inches in size. Using a cereal box I made templates of the card suits, one large size( for the middle of the card and their faces) and a smaller size (for the corners of the cards)using a pencil I lightly traced the shapes on the cards then filled them in with red/black markers. I drew the numbers freehand. I used the cards in disney's AIW as a guideline to make the faces. They were glued to the edge of the card so that when the card was bent over the faces were looking up. I cut out hands and feet which were also glued on. I used 2 and 3's the most because they fit nicer. I did about 12 cards. I bent the cards like a rainbow and using packing tape on the inside I taped them on the floor all over the house and they played croquet for fun.

Game 2: I used the paper mache teapot and they played pass the teapot to music. The winner got an disney AIW book. The last game was pin the paintbrush on the card. We used the large posterboard cardman and rosebush. I painted  matching paintbrushes out of poster board scraps, they all looked like they were dipped in paint. They were blindfolded and had to place their paint brushes over top of the card's paintbrush, who ever got closest won. Winners got an AIW book.

LOOTBAGS: I bought white/ red paper gift bags. I printed/cut out more of the AIW characters and glued them to the fronts of the bags. Alice and the mad hatter went on the white bags and the queen and cards went on the red ones. I used the computer and in red or blue fonts I typed out Thank You for Coming to my party and a Very Merry Unbirthday to you! Using red/blue ribbon they were tied on to the bag handles. Inside I had a felt AIW coloring pages with markers set, a heart shaped ring pop, candy necklaces, chips, a really large sucker, loose gum and candy and extra chocolate flowers.

This party was indeed a lot of work it took me about a month to do in my free time. Because I held the party at home and used a lot posterboard and stuff from the dollar store to make the decorations this party did not cost a whole lot of money, just my time! I hope this inspires you to have one of your own! Thanks for reading my ideas!