Mad Hatter Tea 8-13yr - Costume Ideas

I had an awesome Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter Tea Party for my 11th birthday. This party was based off of the new Disney movie Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton, not the animated cartoon. You can still take some of these ideas if it is for the animated cartoon movie. My party was a sleepover, so I have stuff for all day long. If you want, you can have everyone dress up as someone from Alice in Wonderland. It's takes much more work to make and it can be expensive, so I had everyone bring a funky Mad Hatter hat instead.

INVITATIONS: I wanted simple invitations, so I just printed on the computer a slip of paper that said, You're invited to Katie's 11th Unbirthday party!It's a Mad Hatter tea party! Don't be late!" in a funny font. Clip art and all the information was below it.

DECORATIONS: I made the living room into a forest by putting green streamers everywhere. I also made giant tissue paper flowers that I found out how to on Familyfun.com. In the next room I put up a colorful paper chain colorful streamers and a life sized cardboard cutout of the Mad Hatter.

COSTUMES: I didn't have anyone wear a costume they had to bring a crazy hat. But if you want to have costumes here are some ideas: MAD HATTER: The more colorful the better. Make a top hat by taking any type of hat spray painting it black and dark green then you can add a little lace to it if you would like. Tie a color ribbon around it or a belt if you want the buckle. Don't forget the size card! Take a white piece of paper cardstock works best and write 10/6 on it. Wear funky socks purple pants a colorful shirt with a vest and a tie or bow tie. If you want buy a funky orange clown wig and paint your face white.  ALICE: For this costume it is easiest to buy. But if you just have a blue dress cover the bottom part of the dress with a small white apron which is easy to make even if you just have a white sheet. You can cut it then hem the edges. Curl your hair wear tights and place a blue bow into your hair. CHESHIRE CAT:  Wear purple and blue striped clothing with cheap kitty ears. This is a simple and inexpensive costume. WHITE RABBIT: Wear all white clothes. Attach white felt to strong wire and wrap them around a headband for bunny ears. You can cut pink felt for a fur stomach if it's for younger kids. Make a foil watch attached to string for a pocket watch. WHITE QUEEN: This is simple. Wear a white dress white wig and deep purple or black lipstick. RED QUEEN: Put a small heart on your lips for lipstick as seen in the movie. Wear a red shirt with a black skirt or vice-versa. On your shirt for example if it was red you would put a black felt heart on it. Make a crown out of gold paper or foil but make it tiny to pretend your head is big. Add a stretchy translucent cord to keep the crown on your head.

TEA TABLE DECOR:  I put down a dark colored tablecloth then a lace tablecloth over it. Since I needed lace but we couldn't find lace tablecloths I just got a long piece of lace material and if fit-just barely. The cake was placed in the middle of the table on a tray. I put assorted teacups and saucers and teapots on the table. I made a little white rabbit out of clay and painted him. I set him on the table too. All the teapots had mini pinwheels sticking out of them. The teacups on the table were filled with little pieces of unwrapped candy for guests to munch on.

FOOD/CAKE: My cake was a layered lemon cake with blue-aqua frosting. It said EAT ME in the middle with little spots outlined with black icing. The spots were filled with colorful sugar sprinkles. We had lemonade and juice instead of tea but we stilled used teacups. We didn't use the teapots though. Those were for decoration. Candy was in the teacups and for a meal we had pigs in a blanket small hotdogs wrapped in crescent dough with cheese stuffed inside and baked. For breakfast we all had cinnamon rolls and orange rolls. Mini pastries would work too.

GAMES/ACTIVITIES: We painted little teacups and saucers at the beginning of the party as everyone arrived. That way everyone got to know each other before the rest of the party went on. Our first game was Card Stack where we divided into two teams and each team got a deck of cards. We put the timer for eight minutes and the team with a card castle with the most cards in it wins. We had a hat fashion show. Everyone came down the aisle (hall doorway door room) and posed for a picture while wearing their hat. We played a game where we divided into two teams and three people are the judges.  These could be adults or just more guests. I had filled bags with crazy hats sunglasses necklaces scarves and accessories and each team got one. They dressed up one girl and when they came out the judges had to write down a number between 1-10 on how they liked it. Then when they had added up the scored all together whichever team had the most points won. It was a really fun game especially late at night.

PRIZES: We had little bubble bottles and candy for our prizes. If you want something more for the theme put in fake roses little hats or mini crowns.

FAVORS:didn't have any favors because we had already painted pottery. You could do the same and just let every go home with what they made. But some great favor ideas are a deck of cards Vorpal blow up swords for boys wooden roses and candy. "