Alice in Wonderland Party--Complete!

After three months of preparation, thousands of yards of tulle, stacks and stacks of felt, an entire package of hot glue sticks, a bit of deco mesh, miles of ribbon, and a whole lot of sweat and tears, the Alice in Wonderland themed birthday party is finally complete.  Here are some pics from the event.

For photos with Alice, a simple old chair, a pillar, some silk flowers and a very cute flower wall hanging.

Pink popcorn boxes complimented the movie room where Alice in Wonderland was playing.

A view of the living room from the cat walk above.  The Queen of Heart's table held the presents while the Mad Hatter table was full of Candy!

The birthday girl, in her Birthday Princess rhinestone bling t-shirt leads the way to the box of party props, including tutus for the White Queen, Alice, and the Queen of Hearts.

The Candy Bar at the Mad Hatter's table was decorated with the Mad Hatter's hat in felt, felt mushrooms, silk flowers, and lots of tiny tea pots.

The mantel was decorated with tissue paper flowers and a pink butterfly. A banner reads, "Imma in Wonderland."

A view from the kitchen where the cake sat on a pink table tutu.  The island was decorated with an Alice blue table tutu.

Signs pointed the way to upstairs attraction and hot pink deco mesh wrapped the banister.

The cake, from a local bakery, was decorated with Alice in Wonderland toys from the Disney Store.  Simple and gorgeous.

More deco mesh and a paper and ribbon banner, made from the same scrapbook paper as the invitations. It reads, "Happy Unbirthday!"

144 balloons lined the street, driveway, and decorated the yard.

Another view of the Mad Hatter's Candy Bar.

The Queen of Hearts table, decorated with a red and black table tutu, banner made of playing cards, and a White Rabbit prop, complete with working pocket watch.

A close up of one of the lamps and lanterns decorating the pink cake table. You can also see one of the felt mushrooms.

Guests had their pictures taken with Alice!  They were able to choose many costume options from the photo prop box, including the Whiter Rabbit, White Queen, Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter, oh, and Alice!

Little Sis Lucy looks a little tired!

The party also had a bounce house with a slide.

The childrean also loved playing with the animals in the petting zoo.

I will post more detailed pictures of some of the major items I created for this party, such as the Mad Hatter's hat, the photo props, and the table tutus in upcoming posts. Overall, I believe the party was a huge success!  We had about 80 guests!  All of the children had a WONDERful time and the birthday girl was super excited that so many of her friends came to celebrate with her.

Mad Hatter Saturday!

I have two weeks until Imma's birthday party so I am frantically trying to get as many items made as I possibly can. My goal for today was to get all of the felt items done.  I got very close to achieving this goal. I just have to finish putting the spots on the mushrooms and we'll be all done with felt.  Unless, of course, I decide to attempt something else. . . .
I looked at a lot of the photo prop options for Alice in Wonderland parties on Etsy. I love to support my fellow Etsy crafters and I was seriously considering just ordering from there but I finally decided to just go ahead and make the props myself. I knew it would take longer but I wanted them from felt and not card stock   I wasn't sure if I would be able to make the Mad Hatter's hat or not, I've never attempted anything like that before, but I decided to give it a whirl today and I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I measured Imma's head--she has a pretty big head so I figured, if it will fit her it will fit most of her friends--and used that measurement to determine the size of the bottom of the hat. I realized pretty quickly I was going to need two pieces of felt so I decided to do two different colors, just to make it a little more "mad." I used purple and teal for the body of the hat.  I made the top of the hat two inches wider than the bottom. I sewed the two sides together. so I had a sort-of tube.  For the top of the hat, I knew I would need to insert some cardboard. Luckily, the round piece of cardboard on the top of the ribbon I use fit perfectly, so I used that. I hot glued it inside of the hat a little ways down from the top.  Then, I sewed a circle of blue felt to the top. I thought the brim of the hat didn't need to be perfect because the Mad Hatter is mad, so I cut a two wavy half circles in royal blue and sewed those on.  Then, I decorated by hot gluing different complimentary ribbons on all of the seems. I added some tulle and feathers.  Then, I made three felt roses and I made the little 10/6 sign out of felt and added those. When I tried it on Imma, it wasn't standing up right.  So I took another piece of cardboard from my ribbon spools, trimmed it down a little, and hot glued it about 4 inches from the bottom of the hat.  I decided to add a ribbon for the children to tie it on if they'd like and there you go! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. What do you think?

My first attempt at a Mad Hatter's hat.

Today, I also made:
ears for the March Hare
ears for Door Mouse
a mask for the March Hare
a mask for the Door Mouse
a mask for the White Rabbit (I bought white rabbit ears at Easter time)
10 mushrooms for table decorations
and ears and a mask for the Cheshire Cat, which Imma is modeling below (she has the ears on backwards but that's okay!)

Imma modeling the Cheshire cat ears and mask

I still have a lot more items to make but we are getting there.  I am considering putting this together as a package on Etsy.  Is this something you would consider purchasing and if so at what price point?  I really appreciate your feedback!
What did you do with your Saturday?
P.S. I did spend the day with my children! :)

More On the Felt Owl Masks

I feel like there is something very soothing about hand sewing felt. I'm not sure what it is but I find it very calming to just sit and sew this soft, fun material.  It doesn't bunch, it's not droopy, it doesn't drape over anything.  It just sits still and let's you mold it, let's you turn it into something cute and fun.  I am all for materials that are cooperative!
When I was asked to attempt an owl mask for a forest themed birthday party coming up in April, I thought, "Why not?  I am sure I can find something to use as a reference on Pinterest!" So I decided to give it a whirl.  I did find some useful photos on Pinterest, as well as some free patterns on other websites.  However, I ended up modifying these patterns and creating my own because I didn't love any of them and when I printed them out, they weren't the correct size anyway. I used a basic mask shape for the back ground, used a second color for the contrasting main portion of the face, and then used white for the eyes and gold for the beak.  Sewing it together wasn't difficult at all.  It was a lot of fun!  The only thing I realized once I had it put together was that the eyes just aren't big enough. I decided I would need to make them bigger next time.

The original owl mask

I thought the original owl mask was so cute, I decided to make a special Valentine's Day Owl Mask.  I made it the same way as the original, except I made the eye holes bigger. I also made them heart-shaped instead of circle like on the original owl. I added some more decorative stitches, too.

Valentine's Day Owl Mask

The heart-shaped eye

Who, who, who do you love?

Now that I am using my sewing machine (sort of!) I could probably get these done a lot faster if I used it to assemble them, but I am thinking I might continue to hand sew them.  Maybe if I had a large order I would do them on the machine, but, for now, if you order an owl mask for me, it's probably going to be hand sewn!