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Alice in Wonderland - Happy Unbirthday

March 2004

Nancy in Pearland, TX USA

Special Mention

A Trip To Wonderland  Hi,  My daughter has been in love with both the Lewis Caroll novel and disney movie, Alice in Wonderland for 2 years.  For her fifth birthday we decided to let her visit the place of her dreams and attempted to recreate wonderland for an afternoon in our local park after reserving a pavillion.  I was hoping waiting until the rerelease of the dvd would mean that the stores would carry something.  No such luck so we just went for it! 

For invitations, I wrote letters stating don't be late for an important date. Child's name"s Happy Unbirthday Party is. . . If you are running late and fear the Queen of Hearts may say off w/ their heads then call our cell phone for directions and we will intervene on your behalf.  I added clipart for decoration in the corners. 

We hired a Mad Hatter magician to entertain so that the boys could have as much fun.  Miss Em's provided an Alice costume for our daughter and I had stashed a white rabbit dressed for croquet costume for our youngest daughter since I knew we would eventually use the theme. I took the girls and had portraits doen in advance.  The studio provided me w/ a copyright release for the bakery to duplicate the images on the cake.  A restaurant supply company had clear plexiglass bar menu holders that fit 5X7 photos and allow both sides to show a photo while the stnd upright.  We then had our centerpeices that matched a theme no store sells!  How much more personalized a party can you have and now we have the photos forever so money wasn't wasted.  We used red, black and white as our theme colors for tableware and balloons.  By playing up the playing card guards, the boys loved it!  We purchsed a resuable balloon arch frame and made a rabbit hole entrance for the kids. 

To cover park signs in the pavillion, I made each wall a different part of Wonderland.  One wall was filled w/ a flamingo scene art that a party warehouse sold.  It's 2 5X5 plastic pieces for $4.  Below that was a make your own banner that we wrote happy unbirthday on.  Wall two was the forst signs. I used poseterboard cut out in various shapes and wrote this way, yonder, that way, up, down, etc on them.  The third was playing card guards.  I traced the different suit heads from a disney book and then blew them up as necessary.  I took casino themewaer cutout cards and affixed suit heads to them.  I also used giant playing cards which were 5X7's and affixed smaller heads to them and used white piepcleaners as arms and legs and then wrapped small pieces of either red or black for boots and gloves depending on the suit of the card.   I used enough of the giant playing card set to hole punch them and thread them over the wickets.  I gave the kids infatable flamingos and held The Queen's Flamngo Croquet Relay where they lined up and went through a mini course.  It was a BIG hit! 

We had a Jolly Caucus race too.  The kids ran forwards in a circle, backwards, grabbed hands and went inwards, outwards, squatted down for bottom and jumped up to the Top.  There were request to rerun the race many times that afternoon.  We also had a paint the roses red relay.  I drew the heart topiary like in Disney since it's easy to do on posterboards and outlined roses.  We played Painting the Roses Red from the disney soundtrack in the background while they colored quickly. 

For a pinata, I redid a disney princess heart shaped pinata.  I peeled of the cardboard w/ the princesses and traced it on white posterboard.  I reaffixed these and printed a picture of Alice and another of the spiral chesire cat onto sitcker paper and affixed them to the pinata which was the color of the cat.  We purchased a plastic terrcotta planter that had a lovely grapevine motif at the top and it's saucer.  We cut a styrofoam wreath in 1/2 and painted it terracotta. My husband drilled holes and attached it to the planter with screws so it would last and viola a giant tea cup!  We bought a lot of styrofoam cubes and had the kids play one lump or two and toss them underhand.  Even the toddlers loved this game.  We made a pin the grin game also.  I printed the grins on sticker paper which made it easy for the younger kids to play too.  We drew the cat on posterboard.  We put a spin on traditionaal kids games too.  The kids played Mad Mad Hatter, Follow the Rabbit and The Queen Says. 

We made the Queen's wand w/ a styrofoam heart and 12" dowel that we painted.  The rabbit's paocketwatch was made w/ a circle piece of styrofoam and clock hands.  The final game was a favor walk.  I used a teapot and cup clip art that I printed on card stock.  We numbered them and placed Alice in the center.  When the music stopped she'd draw a number and hand the "winner" thier favor.  The favors were pastic green top hats that we affixed yellow name bages to w/ 10/6 on them.  I filled them w/ easter grass and placed the toys in.  We gave a koolaid squirt bottle w/ a drink me tag, mushroom cookies in treat bags, stained glass AIW coloring book, plastic catepiller, plastic butterfly, growing insect, mini playing card sets, kalidescope, blow out, happy unbirthday pencil and a white rose bubble set from wedding sections.   Oriental Trading Co and US Toys have great favor selections at wholesale prices!  It was a wonderful afternoon!  The parents even had a great time playing croquet.  All of the kids are still talking about thier trip to Wonderland!  We took pictures of all of the hopping through the rabbit hole into Wonderland so we included those with the thank you cards.  Hopefully we gave you some ideas for pulling off a theme that no one carries.  I can't say enough for the menu holders.  Our kids will have personalized centerpieces for years now and the investment wasn't that much anyhow.

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