The Alice in Wonderland Party

We had such a hot day for Maddy's Alice in Wonderland birthday party. We had 16 kids in total and I set up the tables under my market gazebo. 

 Having two girls means I can recycle a lot of our party decorations each birthday. The pink plastic plates have now seen 4 birthday partys and the glass bottles have been through two. You might remember the tissue paper flowers that you can just see on the fence from Eloise's Flower fairy party.

 The only new decorations were the white rabbit (didn't Richard do a great job painting it?) which was a paper mache one from Spotlight and the $3/metre cupcake print fabric that I used down the centre of the table. Richard's Mum brought us lots of beautiful posies of flowers from her garden and we filled jam jars and teapots with them for table decorations. I was amazed how many teapots we own. 6 is a little excessive isn't it?!

 I also indulged in these very gorgeous Alice in Wonderland printables from here. They were so beautiful and really added something special to the party.

 The cupcake cases came from Living and Giving. I ended up buying chocolate cupcakes (on special!) from Foodtown as I didn't have enough time to make them.

 The girls all had apple juice to drink and we had cucumber and ham sandwiches, cheerios (cocktail sausages), fruit skewers, cupcakes and chippies (crisps) for afternoon tea.

Maddy looked so sweet dressed as Alice. It was so hot that a lot of the kids ditched parts of their costumes as the day went on.

 The banner came from the same place as the printables above. I really loved it.

 We had lots of fun decorating the garden with Alice themed signs and heart balloons (and the odd white rabbit toy). The kids got really into it and a few of them mentioned the sign and the decorations.

 I loved the look of these paper lanterns hanging from the gazebo. 

The kids went all out with their costumes. I particularly loved the Cheshire Cat. She looked outstanding!

 We hung a big black sheet over the gate and the kids came through it to tea. We told them all it was the rabbit hole and they loved it.

 Eloise insisted on dressing up as Dinah, Alice's cat. She looked so cute (particularly when she changed into her togs half way through the party!)

 Maddy really enjoyed herself.

 The cake was super simple. I covered a board in green icing. I cut a square cake in half and piled the two halves on top of each other to make a tall, long table. I covered it with ready to roll icing and then Maddy helped me add the Alice characters and various icing flowers and hearts. We put some Sylvanian family cakes and cups on the table and then finally made bunting using the printables and two skewers. Definately the quickest cake I've ever made!

Here's a photo of Richard and I in our costumes at the end of the day. Shattered, but still smiling. Richard looked incredible! He got really into his role as the Mad Hatter. I had to tone down my chopping off of heads as a couple of the girls looked very worried when they turned up!

I'd really recommend this theme for a girls party. It was so much fun and you can do as little or as much as you want. Hopefully, Eloise wants an Alice party in a few years too!

More Alice....

or should I say less? If you've read or watched the movie of Alice in Wonderland, you'll know that Alice drinks from a bottle marked 'drink me' and she shrinks to a size small enough to be able to go through a tiny doorway into Wonderland.

One of the beautiful illustrations from Richard's family copy of Alice in Wonderland which
we've been reading to the girls this week.

The first activity I have lined up for Maddy's Alice in Wonderland Party this weekend is making Alice pendants. We're using Shrinky Dink plastic.This is totally awesome stuff that you can buy in refill pack form from Whitcoulls if you are in NZ. It's a green packet by Klutz and contains 8 A4 size plain sheets. You draw a picture on it, colour it in with coloured pencils, stick it in the oven and it shrinks down to make any drawing look gorgeous.

The Shrinky Dink plastic ready to be cut out and coloured in at the party.

The plan is that the girls will colour in pictures of Alice on the plastic and we'll then shrink them and turn them into pendants whilst they are having their afternoon tea. I love that we are shrinking Alice. Things like that make me happy. I don't think any of the kids will get it but it's got me excited!

I'm also very excited to have discovered this afternoon that you can print onto the Shrinky Dink plastic. I was planning on drawing 16 Alice's by hand for the girls to colour in but printing means that my job has been done in a few moments. If you want to print some Shrinky Dink Alices, I found the clipart here . Just copy an image into a picture editing file like Paint and copy it several times so you can fit lots to a page.



And whilst we are talking about making things tiny, look at these BEAUTIFUL rings that my friend Sarah of Songbird Designs made for the party favours. I think the girls are going to love these. I've put them into little paper mache boxes topped with an Alice Image that I got as part of my Alice Party Printables from TomKat Studios  and there's a little note from Maddy on the bottom of the box.

Just the food to do now. Ha! I almost forgot about that! Luckily, tea parties are pretty straightforward as far as food is concerned. Cake and sandwiches and they will all be happy! I'll post photos of the party next week.

Hope you have a great weekend.

My Creative Space - my little flower

I've been dying to get online and show you these photos of Eloise's finished flower costume for her ballet show. Unfortunately, we've had a fault on our telephone line for most of the day so I haven't been able to do it. We're back online again now though (phew!) so here they are.

 The girls are just wearing leaves on one wrist so they can remember which hand to put in the centre as part of the dance which is a very smart move I think! .

The petal headband needs some work I think. I made ten of these in one go and this one suffered a little in the process! I've got another two to make for the older girls who are dancing with the littlies as well so I'll redo Eloise's at that stage.

 I've just got to get a couple of Lady Gaga costumes together and and all 22 dance costumes will be done! So glad to have that out of the way.
For some fab Creative Spaces, pop over to Kootoyoo.

A very important date.

I'm getting ready for a very important date. My gorgeous Madeleine is turning 7 and the house is being turned upside down as I go ever so slightly crazy with the Alice in Wonderland theme she is having for her party.

(customised printable tags from here. Fabric to be used as a tablecloth from Spotlight.)

She is having a Mad Hatter's Tea Party and as you will see, I've been having a lot of fun with it.

(Teapot and cosy, Op shop finds.

Drink me labels from here.)

(This rabbit is going to be the table centrepiece once Richard has painted it white. It was about NZ$12 from Spotlight.)

Richard is dressing up as the Mad Hatter for the day and I will be the Red Queen (threatening to chop off heads if there is any misbehaviour! Looking forward to that one!)

Eloise wants to be Dinah, Alice's cat, so that's nice and easy as we already have a black cat costume.

The party girl herself is of course going to be Alice and I finished her costume last night.

She's going to look so adorable. The figurines that you've seen in the pictures were a lucky find on Trade Me. They are going on the cake to make life very easy for me.

I think that's why Alice looks so worried. She has seen the size of the cake knife. Actually, when all 18 kids arrive, I will probably have a very similar expression on my face.

Wish me luck!

My Creative Space - Ready, Steady....

I love Christmas and the whole bit leading up to it.

 Did you know that there are only 5 and a bit weeks left until the big day?

 (Brief guest appearance from the the cat that likes to get in the way. Very helpful Kipper.

Can you move now please?)

Now where was I? Oh yes, 'The bit leading up to Christmas'. Five and a bit weeks. That's not long in Mummy and Daddy land is it? There's an awful lot to be done during that time. The gift buying, the food stocking, the light checking and the dusting off of the Christmas tree. Unfortunately, in small children land, five and a bit weeks is an eternity. I may well have let the cat out of the bag yesterday... by accident and the Overexcited Children in this house may have got a little preemptive. I will now have to deal with five and a bit weeks of hourly asking about when Santa is coming and when we are going to Aunty Gennys house for lunch.

 I've got two Christmas markets this week to help the people living in Mummy and Daddy Land out with the gift buying bit of the pre-Christmas preparations (five and a bit weeks isn't long you know!).

 One of those markets is tonight, at Gladstone School, 5-9pm (you can see all the details in the sidebar over to the right there.) Anyhoo... in the spirit of Christmas markets, I got the decorations down from the cupboard yesterday so I could make my stall look quite festive (think sock monkeys in a Christmas tree). I was unfortunately a little less than secretive about it and there was a great deal of ripping open of boxes and squeals by certain small people.

 So I have been sprung and will have to deal with the impatient wails of small people; but my stall is going to look very festive, so that's okay. I have another Christmas market on Sunday. Devonport Craft Market is going all festive on Sunday 21st Nov 10-3pm. We even have a festive eftpos machine which will be manned by the very helpful Mr Cotton Kiwi.

So if you have some Christmas shopping to do for small (and big people, I have goodies for them too!), why not come along tonight or on Sunday and get your shopping out of the way?

And if it's a little too far to come there is always Etsy and Felt. There are links to my shops in the sidebar there.

Now, enough of the shameless self promotion, I'm going to send you off to visit all the other Creative Spaces over at Kootoyoo now. Have a great day!

A Very Merry Un-Birthday to you!

It's birthday time again. Maddy is turning 7 in a couple of weeks and has asked for an Alice in Wonderland party. Oh ok.... so I suggested that she had an Alice in Wonderland party. It seems like the perfect theme for a seven year old's birthday party (and I know how much fun I can have with this theme). And lets face it, the alternative was a Littlest Pet Shop party and how far can you go with that theme with what you have lying around the house?!

I've finished the invites and I'm really quite pleased with them. My new computer has Microsoft Publisher on it and it's just so easy to use. The images are free clipart. Just google Free Alice in Wonderland clipart and you will find loads. I'm going to try to keep the party as simple as possible as I've got quite a bit on with markets etc at the moment but a tea party is going to be really easy to do. I'll update you with more of the plans as they happen.

If you want to use the invitation for your own party, feel free. I'll pop a blank version of it in the party section of the blog.

Feeling a little green?

I finished making the tutus for Eloise's ballet class a few minutes ago. If you read my post on Thursday, you'll know that there are 10 little girls, aged between 2-4 who will be dressed as flowers for the class end of year show and they now all have green tutus to wear. My very helpful number one daughter, Madeleine, offered to model them for me.

All at once.

She makes a great Christmas tree.

She really wanted me to decorate her and pop some gifts at her feet. However, knowing that this little outfit cost around $100 to make, I was quite keen to get her out of it before she decided to go all literal on me and go and plant herself in the garden.

The tutus are all safely packed up and ready to go to class early next week. Another thing ticked off my list. I still have the leaf wristbands and the headbands to make but I have lots of help lined up with those. Off to make some flower filled fairy skirts for next weeks' markets now. Hope you are having a great weekend.

My Creative Space - flower tots

If you happen to pop around for coffee today, you may well be asked to strap a piece of elastic around your thigh, garter style and do some knotting. Yes, I know this is a pretty strange request, even for good friends, but I need help.

And before you say anything, not that kind of help (although my other half and many of my family members will tell you otherwise), I need help making tutus.

 Eloise and Maddy are both in a end of term dance concert. I've already made Maddy's class their hip hop costumes (8 silver tops) but Eloise's ballet class still need theirs. They are being flowers and they are going to look adorable. I don't think it's possible for ten 2-4 year olds not to look adorable but if you happen to attend the show, you may have to go for anti-cute therapy afterwards.

 So today, although I really should be getting ready for the two markets I have next week, I'm cutting up tulle into 6 inch lengths and knotting it on to elastic using this tutorial . It's not exactly a very cheap way of making the skirts but it does make them very very gorgeous.

I still need to trim them so they are all the same length and attach the felt leaves using a glue gun but I think you can get the picture. They'll be wearing flower headbands as well and these little wrist bands (made by glueing felt leaves over elastic bands). I'll take a photo of my little flower when she has her complete costume.



For more Creative Spaces, pop over to Kootoyoo.

Christmas Fairy

I'm so excited about these little Christmas fairy skirts.

 I only have a couple at the moment but if they sell well this weekend, I'll make more.

 The skirts are a pale pink tulle and they are filled with holly leaves and poinsettia flowers. I've also added some soft silver stars and a little jingle bell. Just perfect for a Christmas fairy.

I'm at the Michael Park Steiner School Fair tomorrow (Sat 6th November), 55 Amy Street, Ellerslie, 9.30am-3pm and at Devonport Craft Market on Sunday, 10-3, 32 Clarence Street. I'm really looking forward to it. Off to bed now. A very early start tomorrow!!