ALICE IN WONDERLAND / MAD HATTERS TEA PARTY

I have just finished pulling together ideas for a Alice in Wonderland Birthday party,

but you could use the ideas for a Mad Hatters Tea party also.

 we are going with the Mad Hatters Tea Party theme...

from here

 I love the miss matched china cups and saucers, odd chairs and different lacey tablecloths.

INVITATIONS

The Invites were like these but read....

Don't be late for this very important date!

The Queen of Hearts hereby summons your presence at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party

for a very merry Un-Birthday party

Honoring Miss (place child's name here)

Place in Wonderland ( beside it we had the actual place)

Date,

Time 6 o'clock Sharp!!

Don't be late like the white rabbit!

R.S.V.P The Queen of Hearts ( your number). 

Also please wear your tea attire and your maddest hat.

COSTUMES

we are going for a MAD hats theme, to keep the cost down.

from Quilted Fish

This hat is FAB...

and theres an easy to follow tutorial for tthe Mad Hatters Hat
I also like these mini top hats,
I would glue them to a head band...

there is also a tutorial here for these mini Hatters hat
this is a very grown up version, of a steam punk Mad Hatters Hat

and you guesssed it there is a tutorial for this also!

from everything Alice

Go here for tutuorial to make your own White Rabbit ears

But here are a few other ideas for you...

these Tweedle Dee / Dum costumes are just fabulous!!!

from Green Doodle

there are even some instructons on how to mke them.

photo source

oh now someone's very clever, just look at the next few costumes

Absolum

so, so, SO cute!!!

the White Rabbit...

Oh my life, how sweet

and the Cheshire cat,

how adorable...

all from The Wiesse Guys

there are more too!

SETTING THE SCENE




DECORATIONS

We were greeted at the front door  by a very large card soldier.

based on these

This down the rabbit hole sign hung on the door...

Decorate your door so it represents the rabbit hole,

or the looking glass,

where people have to go through to enter the party.

Hang up signs with 'this way', 'that way', 'up', 'down', etc. painted on them, like in Disney's Tulgey wood.

etsy

Decorate the walls with playing cards,

normal size are fab for bunting

 

but we also found some A3 size ones where were used to make the soldiers.

Place on a Cheshire Cat plush toy (or just it's grin) on a branch on a tree or hidden in a bookcase.

 lawn flamingos

 

 Vulture heads and paste them on top of some umbrella's. Hang the opened umbrella's from the ceiling

 I  used two old paint cans painted the inside red, laid one on its side as if the card soldiers had been painting the roses red,

the other paint can I filled half way with plaster of Paris, while it was still wet I placed an old paint brush on it. I then painted all of that red.

And place them at the base of a tree.

*****

I used hand held mirrors (found in the pound store) and craft foam to create the mirror birds.  

we hung these from the tree at different heights (quite low)...

so the girls they could see their eyes in the birds face like in the movie.

*****

Follow the white rabbit

A sign like this from here

Make rabbit paw tracks and put them on the floor, leading in various paths through your house and garden.

Vinyl ones pull off everything but carpet,
 we used garden spray chalk and cut a template for outside.

This is what they should look like...

TABLESCAPE

Have an assortment of odd chairs or anything suitable for sitting on around the table,
so that people have to sit at different heights.


Place a large winged armchair at the head of the table, for the birthday girl.

Scatter Alice in Wonderland related items across the table,

Just take a look at this FAB-U-LOUS tea party!!!

I love the standard lamp!

from Lad Tea Dah

Set up a long table, covered with all different kinds of teapots, mismatched teacups and saucers,

Combine normal sized teacups with some huge ones (like a flower planter)...

Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland

...like old keys and keyholes,

lots of clocks stopped at tea time, playing cardshearts, large chess pieces.

GAMES

Follow the Rabbit

 Have the kids form a line. Put on upbeat party music, and have the first person in line come up with various dance moves as the rest of the group follows him or her. Switch leaders after a couple of minutes.
wear bunny ears and tail

Mad Hatter's Game

Place a top hat on a chair
 have the guests throw beanbags into the hat from a distance for points.

All Change
(Musical Chairs)

 Have the kids play classic Musical Chairs to the Un-birthday song from the Disney movie.

House of cards

  split into two teams and each team gets a deck of cards.

 put the timer for eight minutes 
the team with a card castle with the most cards in it wins.

Anyone for Croquet?

Get children's croquet set. Invite the party guests to play a short round of croquet.

I love these from Dream party but would take alot of work...

so choose for these as easier

Mad Hatter Says

Play a theme version of Simon Says game

Where's The Dormouse

Gather a lot of teacups and put them upside down on a table.
Under one of them, you hide a Dormouse

photo source

Your guests take turns and may lift one cup per turn to see whether they can find the doormouse,
mix the cups up after each turn. 

The one who finds the Dormouse wins it.
I made one for each child.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Painting the Roses Red" which is a version of 'Hot Potato'.
I printed out pictures of roses and gave one to each child. 

The children sat in the circle with their pictures and we handed out ONE red marker. 
The child with the marker had to color a bit of their flower
(about 30 secconds to make it fair) then pass the marker.

  dress up as the red queen and hid around a corner then would pop out
and scream "Off with her head" at the child with the marker who was then out. 
The winner of the game is either the final child in or else the child who manages to color their entire rose first.





Teapot Tag

 a tea relay race - separate the children into two teams
 place a two large teapots at the end of the course
 the first child had to carry a cup of water to the teapot and tip it in
 the second child had to balance a teabag on their head and place it in the teapot
 the third child had to balance a sugar cube on a spoon and place it in

For each leg after they added the ingredient to the teapot they raced back to tag the next member

Pin the Grin on the Cheshire Cat

Print lots of grins

and put blue tack on the back.

Tea Bag Toss 

 I purchased a giant ceramic planter in the shape of a teacup & set it on a small table on the ground. Each girl was given  tea bags and had to toss the bags into the teacup.
The girl who threw the most in won a prize.

Painting The Roses Red!

relay race

Now this was a lot of work but well worth it.
I got a friend to cut out two large MDF tree shapes (he's a joiner) and drill holes in each where the roses should be.
I painted this

Then I bought 16 red and 16 white artifical roses.
I removed the leaves so they would slide through the predrilled holes.

We split the girls into two teams and gave them a red rose each.
the trees had the white roses pushed through the holes at the start of the game
and the girls had to relay race to swap all the white roses for their red roses
one rose at a time!
bringing back the white roses so the Queen of Hearts didn't see them.

It was such good fun, we played it several times!

You could also do this by drawing trees and roses and sticking the trees to a fence
and put blu tak on the back of the red and white roses so they remove easily.

OR

 you could just place white artifical roses in a bush
and the children run a relay to changed them from white to red roses

photo source

One lump or two?

Object: Toss your sugar cubes into your teacup.

. 

The adults had a game to play too!
Birthday party ideas

 The adults were not allowed to cross their arms or legs.
If they did, the Queens (the girls) would hang signs around their necks reading
"I lost my head to the Queen of Hearts"

They were hung with ribbon around their necks
and were to be worn for the entire party so as to determine who the winner was at the end of the day.

Butterfly pinata

Eat me, drink me!

from here

FOOD

sandwiches which were cut out with card suit shapes cookie cutters(diamonds, hearts, clubs and Spades).
It wasted alot of bread, but most of it was crusts.
The presentation was worth it!

The Queen of Hearts did make some tarts

CUPCAKES

I love these Tweedle Dee / Dum cupcakes the best
but the Mad Hatter and White Rabbit pocket watch ones are also adorable 

Cupcakes nouveau

here

CAKEPOPS

Just look at the Chesire Cat cake bites!!!

BIRTHDAY CAKE

Look at this Alice In Wonderland cake!!!

WOW!!!
from here

Sorry here another. W O W !!

photo source

FAVORS / FAVOURS

A china teacup with

 an "UN-BIRTHDAY GIFT"  tag

a small pack of playing cards
 tub of Absolum bubbles
small packet of sweets "eat me"
the door mouse (prize from game)

PHOTO BOOTH

 a hat fashion show.

Everyone came down the catwalk (hallway)
and struck a pose for a picture whilst wearing their MAD hat.

THANK YOUS

FREE ALICE PRINTABLES HERE

CLIP ART

http://www.geocities.com/disneynutt00/aliceclip.html

Alice in Wonderland font from here

Check out here for other Alice and Wonder party ideas

HERE

photo source