12458

Alice's Mad Hatter Tea - Long Pink Table

November 2005

Jennifer in San Diego, CA USA

Runner-Up

Alice in Wonderlands Mad Hatter Tea Party The invitations were printed on "game night" paper that had all the different card suits as a border.  They read: Don't Be Late, For A Very Important Date!  The queen of hearts, She just won't wait.  It's Sophia's 2nd birthday,  We've all gone mad.  The March Hare, Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat.            Welcome to Wonderland family and friends,  But if you're late the Queen will be off with your heads!  Down the rabbit hole with Alice you'll go,  To the club house from one o'clock till four.  A Mad Hatters tea party is where you'll be.            With sandwiches, cookies, tarts and tea.   This way, that way, directions are attached, If you get lost just ask the Mome Raths.  December 3rd, please mark the day,  Remember, all ways are the Queens way. So give us a call, don't make her mad,  Let us know if you can make it to Wonderland! (RSVP date and phone number) On the front of the envelopes I printed small clip art images of the Queen playing croquet and placed it in the top left hand corner of the envelope.  Where the flamingo croquet mallet is I placed a small colored fuzzy pom pom representing the hedgehog.  In the middle of the envelope I printed off medium sized clip art images of a red card bent in half from Disney's Alice in Wonderland.  On those I printed the addresses to whom they were to be mailed out to. 

For food we had, as the invitations said, sanwiches, cookies, tarts and tea. Our Golden Afternoon lunch table had different floral candle rings with candles in the middle of them.  Each platter was at a different height making the table visually appealing. ( Using different height boxes on the table I used lavender satin from the fabric store to cover the tops of the unattractive boxes.) I enlarged clip arts of the bread and butterflies and hung those above the table.  Under each plate was a floral place mat.  It really was beautiful with all the candles lit. All the cookies said "Eat Me" (with white fondant icing)and all the tea cups said Drink Me. 

The cake was my FAVORITE.  I took card suit cocktail stirrer sticks and made them look like the cardsmens heads.  I used white circular yard sale stickers and colored them with a flesh tone marker.  I made some happy faces and some scared faces.  I stuck these in the middle of the card suits and snapped the stirer sticks about 1/2 in. down from the top.  Using a lighter I carefully melted the ends so as to not scratch the guests.  I took Blue Bonnet snack cakes (vanilla square ones) and with Fondant icing (red and black)drew the card suits in the middle of them.  I took the card suit end of the cocktail stirrer and stuck it down the middle of each individual cake so they would stand up representing card guardsmen.  Then I adhered (with fondant icing)the bottom portion of the stirrer stick to one side of the "card cake" as a guardsmen stake.  I made 40 of these and with fondant icing adhered them to a 13"x19" cake board.  I lined them all up like an army and between the two stakes of the front guardsmen had a Banner attached in the middle reading "Happy Birthday Sophia". 

Decorations were INSANE!  In the background I had the Disney Alice in Wonderland Soundtrack playing.  The door leading to the club house was pathed with bunny foot print tracks from Oriental Trading Company.  I lay down a 15'x25' green tarp and bought garden fencing from Home Depot.  I placed a long line of Banquet tables down the middle of the tarp covered in one roll of pink table cloth so as to look like one EXTREMLY long table.  I bought Tea pots and cups to line all down the middle of the four tables and the tea cups I filled with water.  In the tea cups I placed a red floating rose candle.  I found miniature topiaries (about 2" high) and placed one at each setting.  Around the green tarp I placed three 2'x15' garden fences in a circle creating 3 entry ways to the tea party area.  I used white picket fences. To stand them up I used rectangular floral foam every 3 feet by pressing the bottom of the stake into the middle of the foam.  I used silk flowers to cover the foam up and make them visually appealing. 

Above the party banquet tables I used paper lanterns. 12 Large round ones that were filled with a string a piece of 25 light battery powered Christmas lights.  I alternated these in between smaller paper lanterns on strands of heavy string and hung them up.  I created pathways leading up to each entry way between the fences by taping green table cloth ( from a roll)on the floor from one end of the room up to the entry way.  By the fire place ( with a fire lit) I cut out animated furniture pieces out of colored poster board and hung them right ways, side ways and upside down representing Alice falling down the rabbit hole. There was even a large book cut out readin Alice in Wonderland. On the sliding glass door to the pool area (which we wanted to keep tke kids away from) I created the Tulgey Wood.  I bought four classroom size tree's off of a classroom supply website ($10 per tree).  These were adjustable from 4.5 ft to 6 ft tall.  I taped these to the sliding glass door and on the trunks taped different color signs ( made from scrap posterboard left over from furnitire cutouts) reading this way, that way, yonder etc I used pink hand held mirrors and craft foam to creat the mirror birds.  I hung these from the ceiling in front of the trees at different heights everyone got a kick out of these since they could see their eyes in the birds face like in the movie!  I bough a poster of Alice watching the caterpillar smoke hookah on his mushroom.  I hung this on the wall and with poster board created "smoke vowels".  I cut out each vowel and glued different colored cotton balls on both sides. (One color per vowel)  I hung these from the ceiling as well. 

With all this we had games too!  We pinned the grin on the cheshire cat I used felt to make his face and white felt grins for the kids to pin on his face.  I put this game up on the trunk of a tree in the Tulgey Wood.  I used a felt sheet (green) and cut out a heart tree top to put on a brown cardboard stump.  This was our painting the roses red game.  This was hung up on another glass door.  I printed off white roses and taped them to the tree.  The kids had red roses in their hands ( white print outs I colored red) which they had to relay to the tree with and swap a white rose for a red rose.  I made cardsmen ( one red and one black) with poster board and felt and but one on both sides of the tree.  It doubles as a game and decoration. 

Our final game was the Lobster Quadrille.  I printed off animated lobsters and placed them on the floor in a circle.  Essentially the kids played "musical chairs" and everytime the music stopped the kid not standing on a lobster was out and another lobster was removed before the music played again.  The adults had a game to play too!  My 8 year old cousin wore the Queen of Hearts costume my gransmother made me when I was younger. My daughter had her Queen of Hearts costume on as well. The adults were not allowed to cross their arms OR legs.  If they did, the Queen(s) would hang signs around their necks reading "I lost my head to the Queen of Hearts".  From the classroom supply website I ordered heart cutouts on which I wrote this phrase with permanent marker.  They were hung with ribbon to make necklaces and were to be worn for the entire party so as to determine who the winner was at the end of the day.  The kids activity was to make mini mad hatter hats.  I used Tie Dye lunch bags and rolled the top down to make a brim for the hat.  The kids used stickers ( all kinds) to decorate their hats.  I then tied string on them and made them into party hats!

For goodie bags I made unbirthday cake canisters.  I used the Doritos cannisters and glued butter yellow felt around the canister.  On the lid I glued bright pink (girls) or bright green (boys) felt cut in a circle to cover the top of the lid.  For the side of the lids I cut out a band of felt to look like icing dripping and glued it around the edges.  To cover the seam I glued white ribbon around the edge of the lid.  On the cannister I glued three roses and strung pearls between them to finish the "icing".  Around the outside of the top of the lid using puffy paint I wrote "Merry Unbirthday To You" and in the middle of the top of the "cake" I used bright pipe cleaners as candles and adhered foam flames to them.  I glued two pipe cleaner candles in the middle of each one.  Inside these canisters the kids got flamingo sunglasses, valentine hedgehog keychains, lobster or flamingo shaped lollipop, plastic 4 oz bottle filled with powdered candy ( from oriental trading company)that had tags reading drink me and reeses peanut butter cups with stickers on them saying eat me.  The babies got white plush bunnies that I tied red ribbon around.  The older boys (4 and up) got beach pails with a carpenter tool set, tool belt, measuring tape, lobster shaped lollipops, peanut butter cups, propeller beannie and a deck of childrens game cards.  This was inspired by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dums story of the Walrus and the Carpenter in the Disney movie. 

My son was dressed as the white rabbit and my brother as the mad hatter ( all home made costumes)All of my decorations were hung with removable adhesive mini hooks from 3M.  These were great!  All in all the party was a blast and a lot of well worth it work!  Every one was so-o impressed.

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