ALICE IN WONDERLAND 50TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

HI!  JUST WANTED TO UPDATE FROM MY PREVIOUS POST FROM 4/20.  I SAID THAT I WOULD POST SOME PICTURES FROM THE 50TH BIRTHDAY PARTY THAT MY FAMILY AND I DID.  HOPE YOU ENJOY THEM! YOU CAN SEE THE KEEPSAKE ALICE IN WONDERLAND BOOK THAT I MADE FOR MY BROTHER,AS WELL AS THE INVITATION WE MADE, ON MY PREVIOUS POST.

My mom made this wreath for the front door. I had seen it online. We just added faces of people who were coming to the party. There is a tutorial online as well. Check it out at  lark&lola.blogspot.com 

                   

The flower arrangement was made and brought as a gift to the party from one of the guests.  Nice to have creative guests as well!  The boxes are matchbook boxes just covered in paper. The little velvet couch was from my old dollhouse

This idea I found somewhere online as well but I don't remember exactly where.  We purchased a little tea set and a paper chessboard and set it up on top of a big old book. I made cutouts of the Alice, the rabbit and the Mad Hatter to sit around it. 

We made this paper shadowbox. You can download this paper craft online at paperkraft.blogspot.com

We made this cute paper craft cheshire cat. You can download this paper craft online at upstatefancy.com

We had a desk with an assortment of AIW things along with this pair of old spectacles and some printed out information about Lewis Carroll. He was very interesting to read about.

One of the favorite things I made. It was such fun putting it together! A miniature table with assorted chairs and little miniature things that I had. I made the cakes out of sponge and painted them.  Even little slices of cake for the plates!  I made little books out of cardboard and covered them in AIW book pictures.  The box in the background is a shadow box I made and I used paper cutouts of my brother and sat him at the table alongside the Mad Hatter and on the shadowbox with his own little birthday cake. The background door is paper. I used moss craft grass for the ground covering.

These are other miniature shadow boxes that I made. I now make shadow boxes and sell them on Etsy.

These are just paper cutouts from Alice in Wonderland set by real cups.

My mom and dad had this old clock with the little girl on the swing. It is an antique and beautiful! I made the paper cutouts to sit in front of it. The frog is holding a small clean paper envelope that is an invitation to the Duchess.

Another shot of the tea party and mirror. You can see the cards in the mirror. We strung playing cards on ribbon and hung them in the room

Bookmark favors I made

favors of tea and wax bottles labeled drink me

These are just those little wax syrup bottles. I glues on the drink me signs

This is an Alice in Wonderland pop-up book. I found it online at amazon.com

We made the colored shortbread cookies. The plain ones are store bought chess shortbread cookies.  The tweedledee and tweedledum are paper.

One of the salads we served with real edible flowers!

Our little Alice from the original book - costume made by my mom

Costumes made by my mom, the Queen of Hearts. She made an extra large paper mache head and covered it with red yarn.

Our grown up Alice from the new movie

This is a mirror hanging on the door. You can see the reflection of the rabbit in it.  The sign says "Join us on the other side of the looking glass". We led our guests through this door and then down the rabbit hole (which was an overgrown bush divided in half with a small trail through it. You had to duck down to go through it). Once through the hole (so to speak) we had an area fixed up like the rabbit's hole with an assortment of his collected things.

Our white rabbit. We found this old clock that someone was throwing out and added a chain to it. Our rabbit went through the house saying "I'm late, I'm  late" and then had all the guests follow him through the looking glass mirror and down the rabbit hole.

This is where the rabbit hole (bush) was.

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Our caterpillar. A really amazing job on the costume! Sitting on a stone table with a mushroom top. He has a box of cocoa dusted meringue mushrooms we made. You can find the recipe online.  We made a hookah for him from an old bottle shaped similar with a rubber hose attached.  (since we didn't have a real one). As the guests walked by each character we recited lines from the book....

Here is our collection of things in the rabbit hole

Here I am (LOL) in my Cheshire cat costume. Again, made by my talented mom!  The top was furry and I had claws on my furry slippers and gloves. 

The rabbit hole was behind this.  Once you came through the door after Alice ate the cookie and drank from the little bottle you were in Wonderland!

My sister made most of the mushrooms!  Another amazing job!

Here she is - my sister! She was dressed as the duchess and played her part well, accent and all!

Our March Hare.

Our little rat from the pool of tears

Bought some large flowers I found on sale and added paper cutout faces to them

More artificial flowers with plastic eyes added. We also had some beautiful large roses that I found on sale that had cute faces we put on. I don't seem to have a picture of them.  We also made large paper flowers from colored tissue paper and my mom also had a garden of real roses!

My brother - the birthday Mad Hatter!  He put together his costume pretty much at the last minute when we told him what the theme was going to be. He is an artist so has a lot of artsy clothes anyway!  My mom made the amazing hat and hat pins!  She also had some vintage mini spools of thread that she strung for him to wear like the Mad Hatter in the newest movie. Perfect! He also had on old boots of his.

My two brothers and Alice (my niece) did an amazing and hysterically funny skit at the table reciting the lines from the book (with a few funny ad libs as well).

Hats that my mom made! These were made out of whatever she found around the house.(It's a good thing she saves most everything!)

We used all the things that my mom, my sister and I had and a few extra finds from the thrift stores - assorted chairs, tablecloths, china, cups and saucers, teapots and clocks.

Now this was another amazing job my mom and sister did on the cake!  Copied from a cake online  from cake nouveau.  I still can't get over what a great job they did without ever taking a cake class! Plus the fact that they were so rushed for time in making it and literally made it the morning of the party!  They also made their own fondant for the first time! An old candle teapot was found at a nearby thrift store for the top. The clock is a vintage salt shaker my sister had.  The top of the cake is done in all fondant.

Another amazing cake my mom made!  Actually the top part is the cake where the clock numbers are. Rest of it is just a can she covered with the icing and a cardboard hat brim.  The numbers were put on a piece of cardboard and layed on top of the cake.  The watch is fondant. Saw a picture of this online and made it into a cake.

I take credit for the cupcakes. Came out cute too but a lot easier than the cakes!

Our second table inside the screened room.

Our cook!  She did a great job with the pepper!

Another mushroom my sister made with a glow stick in the bottom for when it got dark out

Some things that we used to make chess pieces and a painted piece of wood for the chess set.  My mom made the frog's outfits. They represent the frogs from the newest movie and we had a "real" frog as well who had jelly on his mouth and gulped when the queen ranted "Who ate my tarts"!

Over sized cupcake from Publix bakery

Our homemade bread and butterflies

No we didn't can the jam!  Has the saying from AIW - Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today!

My dad, the King of Hearts, with the White Queen

Playing croquet with  flamingos! (We found these at the dollar tree after looking everywhere for some!) We also had a stuffed animal groundhog for the ball and we made paper card people for the wickets. The cards hanging on the clothesline were the same type of cards we made for some of the guests to wear, but they had one for the front and one that hung over their back. We also had red and black scarves for them to wear on their head, to match their card color.

My husband wearing a wig as the Knave. My mom the Queen has her feet propped up on a ceramic pig (which you can't see from the picture).  She yelled out the line from the movie " I need a pig here!"

"If you don't know where you're going then it doesn't matter which road you take"We had an old stuffed animal tiger. We removed the face and I printed out a cat face from the computer and attached.  Painted blue stripes on it to represent the Cheshire cat in the movie.  Came out rather cute! 

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

The White Queen with her potions

Found this cute bunny at store - Tuesday Mornings. I love the old frog dish that my sister had!

We bought these delicious raspberry tart cookies and wrote "Eat me" on them with icing. Found the cookies at Fresh Market.

Our Executioner for the Queen - with Cheshire cat peering out of the bushes.

Cutouts that we placed on a striped piece of cloth.

Our white rabbit now becomes the Queens rabbit as he announces her arrival to the croquet game.

It's getting rather late, wouldn't you agree?

Will share some of my Alice In Wonderland shadow boxes that I made, along with a few other things from the party, in my next post!  Hope you'll stop by again!