Lizzie's Alice in Wonderland Birthday

If you know anything about me, you know I love throwing parties! We did a big ladybug themed party for Lizzie's first birthday last year and I wanted her second birthday to be just as great. I decided to go with an Alice in Wonderland theme since that's what we all were for Halloween and we already had the costumes to wear.

It was a lot of work, but I also had a lot of fun putting everything together. If I had more time, I would have done even more, but I think everything turned out very nice.

The Guest List

We invited about 45 people, but not everyone could come, naturally, so we ended up with about 25-35 people in total. We invited some of Shawn's family, my family, some of our friends, and Lizzie's birthfamily. Her birthmom, Jessica, is out of the country right now, but Lizzie's grandmother, great-grandparents, and some aunts and uncles and cousins were able to come. We were really excited to see everyone.

Shawn, Lizzie, and I dressed in versions of our Halloween costumes. Lizzie wore her Alice dress (which fit her a little better now that she is older). Shawn and I didn't wear our whole costumes from Halloween since they would have been too big and clumsy to walk around all day in. I wore a red dress and the crown I had made and Shawn wore a vest and his Mad Hatter hat from Halloween. Here’s a blurry picture of all of us together…

Some of Lizzie in her Alice dress…


Invites

I like to make my own invitations, so I spent some time browsing the web and coming up with ideas. I posted about the invites before, but here are some better pictures of what they turned out to look like (I deleted our address from the photos which is why they look kind of blank in places).



I even hand made the envelopes myself…

I made the invites by folding a piece of 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper in half and then cutting out two tea cup shapes (the cups are joined at the bottom). I glued them together around the sides and then glued the party info (which I had printed on a white piece of card stock and cut out with decorative scissors) to the front. The tea bag insert has Victorian artwork from the original Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland and the R.S.V.P. info as well. The blue dots on the top and bottom were made with blue glittery puffy paint (the kind that is used on paper, I guess).

I am also selling them on Etsy if anyone is interested in buying them!

Decorations

I kind of went crazy on the decor (like I always do). I basically divided the house into different areas and decorated each room accordingly.

The front door and main hallway coming into the house were decorated to be like the beginning chapters of the book (where Alice first sees The White Rabbit and goes through the locked door. I made a little White Rabbit from an Easter Bunny yard sign. I just cut out a coat and pocket watch and glued them onto the bunny and stuck him by the front door. Inside the house, I cutout the letters "I'm Late for a Very Important Date" from colorful card stock and also some clocks, keys, keyholes, rabbit paw prints, "Drink Me" bottles, and "Eat Me" cakes. I taped all those up (with painter's tape since it sticks fairly well and is easy to remove) in the hallway area. At the end of the hallway, on our bar, I placed Lizzie's dollhouse (to serve as The White Rabbit's house) with little treat/favor bags inside. The bags had candy in them and were shaped like carrots. The tags had little white bunnies on them, so I wrote on each one "A Very Merry Un-Birthday to You! From: The White Rabbit."



The living room, kitchen, and other hallways and bathrooms in the house were designated as the general Wonderland. I cut out loads of flowers and leafs and mushrooms using the Cricket which I borrowed from my awesome sister-in-law, Jeanette. I also made some tissue paper flowers using these instructions from pink and green tissue paper that I had lying around. I printed out cool Alice in Wonderland garlands (which I found online here) and then strung them together with red curling ribbon (I had three strands of these garlands all together and placed them throughout the house). I also printed out little signs that read "Up," "Down," "This Way," "That Way," and "Yonder" and attached them the posts by the stairs. I made some characters from the book, too. I found some large flowers with faces on them at my local craft store and I taped them to the wall together to be the talking flowers Alice encounters. I also made the hookah smoking caterpillar. I cut him out of construction paper. His main section is just large circles, which are taped to the wall. I cut out eyes and a mouth, feet and antenna, a mushroom, and the hookah and pipe to finish him off and taped them all in place also. He also has the lettering "Who R U" next to him since the caterpillar in the movie blows these letters out of his pipe at Alice. I borrowed a Cheshire Cat stuffed animal and stuck him in the fake tree we keep up year round. I wanted to do something different with the streamers (not just coming from the center of the room). I was inspired by the decor at this party given by Kate Spade which I found on another blog (see the video at the end of the post). I liked the way the duct tape on the ceiling criss crossed in a pattern so I decided to mimic this effect with the streamers across the living room ceiling. I think it turned out rather nice. I also hung butterflies from invisible string randomly around the ceiling just to add to the fun.








The dining room was going to be the Mad Hatter's Tea Party area. I cut out top hats, tea cups, and tea pots from card stock and taped them up as well. I also found some cool lanterns which I hung from the ceiling around the dining room table. I cut out the quote "We're All Mad Here" to go on the dining room window. I put a blue disposable table cloth over out dinging room table with a tea cup tower and two pots of flowers as decoration. I made the tea cup tower from some tea cups I found at a thrift store. I glued them together with hot glue and then decorated them with stickers. I wrote "Mad Hatter's Tea Party" going down each of the cups and then stuck some flowers in the top of them. I also decorated the chairs around the table with ribbons just to give them something a little extra. I made a special chair for Lizzie with her name on it. She sat there to blow out her candles.






The family room was the Queen of Heart's Kingdom. I cut out hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs from red and black card stock to tape on the walls. I also made more tissue paper flowers from red and white tissue (some flowers were red, some red and white, and some just white). I also had some yellow crowns that I cut out and scattered around the room too. I found a pack of large playing cards and used some of those as decor too. I cut out the lettering "Off With Their Heads!" for the door going out to the patio. I also got some silk roses in white and painted them red and put them in a vase on the table (I also bought a big white rose and painted it red and wore it pinned to my shirt). I had found some cool flamingos for the yard, but as it was wet outside, no one went out so I didn't bother to put them up. I hung another Alice garland and a card suites garland I got at a party store. I had red and black streamers to hang as well, but Shawn said this was overkill. I still think the room would have looked nice with it.




I also made little costumes for our guests to wear. I always think this is a fun little extra and our families seem to enjoy it. For this party, I had five different pieces of headwear guests could choose from. I had Mad Hatter hats, which were just black plastic hats from a party store that I glued ribbon and the "10/6" sign to.

I made Queen of Hearts crowns. Again, just glittery gold foam crowns that I glued a red heart too. I also found some heart wands that I got on sale after Valentine's Day, which all broke very quickly, so I don't have any of those pictured.

I bought White Rabbit ears. These were about $1 a piece and available everywhere since it was just before Easter.

I also made Cheshire Cat ears and smiles. These were a little more complicated. I bought a pack of headbands and then some purple and pink felt. I cut out the ear shape and the shape of the pink insides and glued them together around the headbands. I printed artwork of the Cheshire Cat's smile from the Alice in Wonderland animated movie and then enlarged it and cut out and glued to a purple stick. These were a little more time consuming, but also really fun.

My final costume was some flower petal headbands that went home with our guests after the party (which was what they were intended to do). They were very cute in pink, purple, and yellow. I got them from the Dollar Spot at Target. You’ll see some of the guests wearing them in other pictures.

Menu

I tried to theme the menu after Alice in Wonderland characters. Everything had a little name tag attached to it telling our guests which character "prepared" the dish. All the food was arranged on plates or three-tiered trays. Here's what we served:

* The Mad Hatter's Tea Sandwiches (peanut butter & jelly, chicken salad, and tuna salad)
* Humpty Dumpty's Deviled Eggs
* Contrariwise Quiche (ham & cheese flavored)
* The Queen of Heart's Tarts (bite-sized cherry and strawberry tarts)
* The White Rabbit's Veggie Tray (carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, and ranch dip)
* The Doormouse's Cheese Tray (cheddar, swiss, and colby jack with Pepperidge Farm butterfly-shaped crackers)
* Cheshire Cat Smiles (those smiley face French fries)
* The Caterpillar's Stuffed Mushrooms
* Tweedledee & Tweedledum-dums (a bowl of Dum-Dum suckers)
* Drink Me Wax Bottles (a bowl of candy wax bottles)
* Eat Me Cookies (frosted sugar cookies with "Eat Me," "Try Me," and "Take One" written on them)
* Eat Me Cupcakes (instead of cake I made cupcakes and made little toothpick signs for all of them that said "Eat Me")

I also made a small cake shaped like a tea cup (it only kind of looked like a tea cup, but it was just for Lizzie to sing "Happy Birthday" to and for her to smash up a little, so no harm done).

For drinks I served punch in a punch bowl, lemonade, iced tea, apple juice, and cranberry ginger ale (no sodas). I also had hot tea and coffee for the adults.

Some of the treats prior to the party…

The cookies and tarts (I had someone make them for me)…


Here’s Lizzie blowing out the candles and eating her tea cup cake…





The Party

The day went really well! We had more guests than we thought, but everyone had a good time. I only planned on having about 25 people, but we probably had a little closer to 35 so I ran a little short on food (I guess we had just enough, but I don't mind having leftovers, so if I would have planned better, we could have had more). Here are some of the people who came…

Shawn’s parents, Don and Mary…

My mom and dad…

Melissa and her daughter, Grace…

Some of our nieces (Julie, Kimmie, Olivia, and Kara)…

Me and my best friend, Kristina…

My friend, Maggie, and her husband, David, and son, Reed…

Me and my friend, Lisa…

Shawn and I (awwww)…

Lizzie also got so many awesome gifts – loads of toys and games and books. She also desperately needed 3T clothes and got a whole colorful stack (these will be great for the summertime)…


Lizzie had a great time running around and eating treats and visiting with all her family and friends. Shawn and I also had a great time celebrating our little baby, who's getting bigger everyday!

Now we just have to decide what we'll be doing for her third birthday...

-- Lisa