Playing Card Streamers

Materials:
*Deck of playing cards
*Mounting tape
*Ribbon
*Scissors
*Tape

Directions:
*Cut 26 lengths of ribbon to the desired size and curl them if you would like.
*Using mounting tape, secure a piece of ribbon between two playing cards.  Repeat with the remainder of the ribbons and cards.
*Tape ribbons to the ceiling.

Red and White Paper Roses

     Brian didn't want me buying artificial roses for my birthday party, so he promised to help me make paper roses.  He ended up making all four of the white roses and one of the reds, while I made the remaining three reds.

Materials:
*Cardstock in red and/or white
*Floral wire
*All purpose adhesive
*Rose template
*Scissors
*Pen

Directions:
*I got the template and instructions from elli.com.  They have an excellent pictorial tutorial that is easy to follow, but I did make a few modifications to it as I went along, which I will mention below.
*First of all, I substituted floral wire instead of bamboo skewers.
*Secondly, you'll notice there is no template for red roses.  I just used the one for white roses on red cardstock.  The only problem with this method is the leaves will not print correctly.  I eschewed leaves entirely, but if you do want to use them, you can print extra leaves onto white cardstock or you can trace the leaves onto green cardstock.
*Instead of hot glue, I used all purpose adhesive.  Brian tried using hot glue for the roses he made and it worked out all right, but I think the all purpose adhesive was easier to work with and it has held up just fine.
*To make the roses look more rose-like, I cut some of the bigger (four- and five-petal) rose pieces apart, adding in an extra set of two-petal pieces and multiple extra three-petal pieces.
*To give the roses more of an Alice in Wonderland vibe, you could try mixing together red and white pieces when constructing your roses.
*For instructions on how to make the teapot vase these roses are in, see last week's blog post.

Flowers with Faces and Paper Teapot Vases

Flowers with Faces

     My "happy sunflowers" were one of my favorite crafts I made for my birthday party.  They're just so cheerful!

Materials:
*Artificial flowers
*Googly eyes
*All purpose adhesive
*Pink foam
*Scissors

Directions:
*Cut out smiles for the flowers from the pink foam.
*Glue googly eyes and smiles onto the flowers.

Paper Teapot

*2 sheets of carsdtock in the same pattern
*All purpose adhesive
*Pencil

Directions:
*Create a paper gift bag from one of the sheets of cardstock.  Brian gave me a Silhouette CAMEO for an early birthday present, so I used the heart gift bag template that came with the machine, but there are plenty of bag templates that are freely available online, such as the ones here.
*Using the second sheet of cardstock (or scraps from the first if there is enough excess), sketch out a handle and spout for your teapot.  Leave a little extra paper at the ends to create flaps that you can affix to the teapot.
*Fold over the flaps so that they form a 90 degree angle with the handle and spout and then glue the flaps to the gift bag to create the teapot.

Alice in Wonderland "Drink Me" Bottles

Materials:
*Glass vials (I got mine from the wedding section at Joann, but I've read that old frappuccino bottles work well for this).
*Cream colored cardstock
*Scissors
*Hole punch
*Twine

Directions:
*Print out as many copies of the below "drink me" tag as you need onto the cream colored cardstock.  Alternately, if you'd like to do the lettering yourself, you could use the tag template from last week's post and either import it into Microsoft Publisher or a similar program and add the text in your desired font, or print the template and hand write the words.

*Punch a hole in the top of each tag.
*Tie the tags to the glass bottles using twine.

Teacup Tags and Snack Ideas for Alice in Wonderland Party

Teacup Snack Tags

     Label your party foods with these adorable teacup tags.

Materials:
*Patterned cardstock
*Cream colored cardstock
*Teacup template
*Pencil
*Scissors
*X-acto knife
*Hole punch
*Twine
*Tape

Directions:
*Procure a teacup template.  I used the one from Everything Alice that is supposed to be used for making invitations, but there are probably plenty of ones freely available online you could print.
*Trace the template onto the patterned cardstock as many times as you need food labels.
*Cut out the teacups, using the X-acto knife when necessary.
*Using the template provided below or by designing a tag of your own, create labels for your snacks.  I opened the template up in Microsoft Publisher and added text that way, but you could also use a similar program or hand write the labels.

*Print out and cut out the labels.
*Punch a hole in the top of each label.
*Tie some twine to the labels and then tape them to the teacups.

Snack Ideas

For snacks, we had almond comfits (Jordan almonds), since comfits are the prize for the caucus race in the book.  We also had White Rabbit crackers, which were Annie's White Cheddar Bunnies, bread and butterflies (toast with butter and cinnamon sugar cut into butterfly shapes), and "Eat Me" cupcakes made using Funfetti cake and Brian's homemade icing.

Alice in Wonderland Silhouette Cake Toppers

Materials:
*Full body photos of people and pets to represent various Wonderland characters printed onto printer paper
*Pencil
*Printer paper
*Tape
*Scissors
*X-acto knife
*Cardstock
*Laminator
*Toothpicks

Directions:
*Pick out a full body photo of someone who could play the role of one of the characters from Alice in Wonderland and print it onto printer paper.
*Tape a photo up to a window.
*Tape a sheet of printer paper over the photo.
*Trace the outline of the figure onto the printer paper and then remove the tracing from the window.
*Make any modifications to the silhouette that you need to.  For example, in the original photo I used for my Alice silhouette, I had my arms in the air.  I had to redraw my arms to make them work better for the cupcake topper.
*Pick one attribute for each Wonderland character and if it would affect the shape of the character's silhouette, draw it in.  I drew a bow onto my Alice template and a hat onto my Mad Hatter template.
*Cut out the silhouettes and trace them onto a cardstock sheet of your choice.
*Cut the silhouettes from cardstock.
*Add any details that you think are important to the characters.  For example, I gave my Cheshire Cat a grin.
*Laminate the silhouettes and cut them out.  Leave some extra plastic at the bottom of each one to stick into the cake and help prop them up with toothpicks.  Alternately, you could attach the figures to popsicle sticks and that may help them stand up better.

     Here are the cake toppers on my birthday cake.  I did not think the placement through well before putting them into the cake and so it ended up looking unbalanced.  It would have worked much better had I put the Mad Hatter and Alice on opposite sides, but it was an interesting cake.

Alice in Wonderland Birthday Party

     On Sunday I had my Alice in Wonderland themed birthday party, so for the next few weeks (or months) I'll be posting some Alice in Wonderland themed crafts.  Today's post will be an overview of the party so you can get a sense of what it looked like and I'll try to link to each craft as I write the posts.  You may also want to see my earlier post on my Alice in Wonderland charm bracelet.

     First up is the snack table.  This was one of my favorite things about the party.  I really liked the setup and the happy sunflowers are so adorable!

     On the ceiling are some playing card streamers.  I used extra fabric to cover up the printers and then added decorations to the top.  On one of the printers you can see a mouse and a rabbit inside teacups:

     To make the mouse I used the templates and instructions for the "Lavender Dormice" in the book Everything Alice, with some modifications.

     For the White Rabbit, I used the template and instructions for the White Rabbit in the "Wonderland Mobile" in Everything Alice, again with some modifications.  In the book they do some gorgeous embroidery on the rabbit, but I don't know how to embroider things and so I left that off.

     On the other printer you see my key tree and my old stuffed animal cat, David Copperfield, playing the role of Dinah.  I made him a clay name tag with the name "Dinah" on it using the same technique as I did when I made the clay nameplate earrings.

     Here's the crafting table.  We decorated paper "teacups" and made some paper fans.  I found some oversized playing cards at a yard sale a little while back and I taped a few of them to the booth for some added decoration.  It's hard to see from this picture, but I have a clear plastic tablecloth covering the cloth one.  I found that was the perfect way to have a nice tablecloth without having to worry about it getting stained.  On the wall are some Alice in Wonderland themed photos and artwork that I used to replace the regular photos I have hanging on the wall.  You can also see that I kept my whimsical spring floral arrangement and my spring butterfly mobile out for the party.  I thought they went well with the rest of the decor.

     Here are the decorations on the other wall.  Some of them are kind of hard to see, but I'll have better pics in a later post.

     These are the plates, napkins, and straws I used.  They all came from Dollar Tree.  And here are some photos from the party:

     Here are some of the guests being crafty.  Katie is wearing Cheshire Cat ears.

     Here's me as Alice and Brian as the Mad Hatter.

     Trying to give dad bunny ears.

Cake time!