Alice in Wonderland 5yr - Alice & Teacup Photo

My daughter chose Alice in Wonderland for the theme of her 5th birthday after seeing a flamingo croquet game in an old party book. I didn't want your typical tea party or unbirthday, but I wanted to incorporate stuff from the Disney Movie.

For invitations: I hand made the cards, with some design help from a friend. I cannot describe how cute they were to give them any justice. On the front it said  Don't be late for a very important date!!! I dried embossed a pocket watch in gold paper and attached it with ribbon. On the inside: If you're feeling quite Mad! We'll make you right glad! Please join us for a Birthday Celebration in Wonderland with (Child's Name) Saturday, July 15, 2006 Down the White Rabbit's Hole (Your Address) 1:00- 2:30 pm   R.S.V.P. The Queen of Hearts (Your name and phone number) or off with your head! I added 3 small heart stickers at the across the bottom. I then printed the envelopes on my computer to each individual who we were inviting. On the return address I wrote The White Rabbit and then my address. I used Alice in Wonderland stamps from the US post office, but I don't think they have them anymore.

The prep time for this party was a few months because I had to make all of the decorations by hand. I was lucky to find some things that I could use without having to make it. I had signs along my driveway that greeted guests: This way, That way, not here, up, down, here, further, not there.  I made these out of boxes that I cut up, spray painted brown and used large paint stir sticks from Home Depot as the stakes. I also traced, then painted a picture of the white rabbit, looking frantic holding his pocket watch, on a large foam board, taped more paint sticks to the back and stuck that at my entrance. 

The kids then went over to a craft table where they made fingerprint bugs and flowers on a small flowerpot. I had spray painted the pots all white then painted with craft paint two small stripes at the top. I was trying to make them look like teacups. I found a cute idea book at the library to make their fingerprint art really cute. While their craft dried, the kids then when over to a huge teacup where I took their picture with Alice. My daughter received an Alice costume for her birthday from a grandma, completely planned of course. We found a reasonably price one off of ebay. The giant teacup was made out of a huge piece of cardboard spray painted white and I painted two large stripes across the top, just like the flowerpots. My mom shaded the teacup so it looked really looked great. After their picture we played Pin the grin on the Cheshire cat. I enlarged and traced him on poster board painted then laminated. All of my pictures or clipart that I used I found on the internet.

My next game was a jolly caucus race or musical chairs. I made cards with pictures of characters from Alice ex. The White rabbit, the queen of hearts, Alice, the doorknob, the walrus and the carpenter, the card soldiers, the rose. I mounted them individually on cardstock and laminated them I also did a smaller set of the same pictures. I taped the large pictures on the chairs and the small pictures I place in a bag. We played the Alice in Wonderland soundtrack, which you can buy on the internet, but it's not cheap. I would check your local library to see if they have it first. When the music stopped there was always enough chairs for everyone to sit down, on the first one I drew a picture out of my bag and that person with the same picture took their chair out, then that child got to draw out the next picture and so forth.

Between games the kids could go to a table and eat edible mushrooms and chat with the caterpillar. For a backdrop on a tri display board I enlarged and traced the caterpillar leaning on some mushrooms, my sister helped by painting it for me. I also added some large butterflies made out of sheer fabric to give some dimension. I found those at the dollar store. On the table I had an oversized rod iron teacup, I think it was supposed to be a planter, but I filled it with large marshmallows. I had a tray of vanilla wafers and small crock-pot of warm melted chocolate for the kids to dip the marshmallow and then place a vanilla wafer on the top. A sweet edible mushroom that the kids loved.

We then played One lump or two. This game I found on this website, absolutely adorable. Object: Toss your sugar cubes into your teacup. While shopping for a large terracotta pot to make the teacup for this game, I stumbled across a giant teacup with plate attached at Wal-Mart in their gardening section. It was a planter and it was perfect. I bought some large Styrofoam squares covered them with white felt. Then I went one step further. I wanted my teacup to look like it was sitting on top of a table, but in order to play the game we needed to be on the ground. I took another tri-display board and enlarge and traced a picture with the Mad Hatter, The March Hare and the dormouse sitting at a table with some teapots and cups. I found this picture as a coloring page that included Alice, but when I traced it on the board I left her out. In her place I wrote One Lump or two. My mom then painted the characters in and did a fantastic job. On the display board I painted the table pink and then I used a pink plastic tablecloth to run along the game area, placed my giant teacup in front of my Mad Hatter and viola! Too cute.

My final game was Queen of hearts croquet. I had four flamingo mallets, four-hedgehog kush balls and eight card wickets. This game was crazy and hysterical to watch. I had the kids just hit their hedgehog under one or two wickets and trade off until all the kids had a chance then they could do it again.  For the mallets I tried to use blowup flamingos, but they weren't strong enough for the large kush balls. So I had to go back to the original idea of using croquet mallets and placing a sock on the handle forming a head and stuffing it with other socks and then sewing a piece of black felt to the sock for a beak. I found it better to use the bottom of the mallet as the head. I cover that with a bright pink sock, which it gave the head it's shape, and then I hot glued black foam in the shape of a beak, glued two large goggle eyes and tied a ribbon around the neck.

For the wickets, I found large playing card centerpieces at a party store. They were bigger than the jumbo playing cards that I had seen on ebay. I taped these to the wire wickets and stuck those around my yard. I made four large card soldiers out of some really big playing cards I found at another party store, but I think I have seen them at Party America.  I made their faces and taped them to the top of the cards and then taped another large paint sick to keep it from bending over and used that as my stake. I also made two heart shaped trees. I drew a large heart on cardboard, spray painted it green. I had found large plush red roses, but not enough for my trees, so I used the plush ones on one tree and just drew the roses on the second tree. On the tree with the plush roses I also need some white roses sort of painted red. So I found fake roses at Wal-mart and dipped them in red craft paint so they looked half painted. They looked awesome. I pokes all my roses through the cardboard then attached the heart with packing tape to a thick stick and my husband hammered them in to the grass.

At this point you could say I went crazy. I also took to two empty paint cans painted the inside red and laid one on its side as if the card soldiers had been painting the roses red, the other paint can I filled a with newspaper then I put a cardboard lid on the newspaper to keep it level and then put plaster of Paris on top of that, while it was still wet I stuck an old paint brush in it. I then painted all of that red and I had a bucket of fake paint. I sat that next to my other tree. The party table sat underneath a canopy. I strung Chinese lanterns (OTC) and crepe paper in a crisscross pattern. By chance I had found plates, napkins and cups and party blowouts with a teacup and a teapot on it in the clearance section at a party store.

After the croquet game we went inside to cool off and open presents. We then went back outside to the table sang happy birthday and have cake. The cake was a teapot, the best picture that I have seen with instructions is at www.marsbrightideas.com We did our own colors and design on our cake, but incase of a problem and our cake didn't work I had a back up plan. I had bought Alice in Wonderland figurines while a Disneyland and I was just going to buy a sheet cake and place the figures on the cake, but our teapot cake turnout. My daughter was thrilled. I also found a sparkler candle in the shape of a five. Our cake looked just like the one in the movie before they blow it up with the fireworks. After cake and ice cream the kids went back to the craft table and planted a flower so they could talk to the flowers.

The goodie bags were just white lunch sacks with each child's name on it and a sticker of Alice for the girls and the Mad Hatter for the boys. I had to make the stickers. They collected stuff throughout the party and we just had the bags line up on my patio so they wouldn't have to carry them around. They received a Kool-aid drink with a tag that said Drink Me a cookie with a tag that said Eat me teapot party blowout, bubbles with a label that I made with the caterpillar and the funny crocodile poem, a plastic crab or lobster squirter (OTC), (it goes with the Jolly caucus race) a flamingo sucker(OTC)(Queens Croquet) chocolate playing cards(OTC) and their potted plant. For thank you notes we'll send the kids an individual picture of them and Alice.  This party was a lot of work, my daughter loved each project as we finished a section and I have to say it looked spectacular all put together plus my daughter and her friends had a blast in wonderland.