Birthday!

I've always remembered my 7th birthday party. It is etched on my memory as one of the best parties ever. I think it is because I'd never really had a party before. I was always allowed one or two friends over for tea but not a proper party. But when I was 7, I was allowed 7 friends. Mum and my sister told stories about pirates who had lost an eye and made us put our fingers in some jelly which was supposedly his eye socket (cue lots of ewwwws) and we had to sit on the truth chair, a chair where when we answered a question and sat down it weed if we were lying! A brilliant party for 7 year olds. Was so different to all the other parties and lots of fun.

The fun and exciting birthday party has been something I've been looking forward to creating for Matilda since she was born. Finally she has reached an age where she has enough understanding to be able to play along and get involved in imaginative play.
She was allowed 6 friends over and we thought we'd have a tea party, which slowly merged into a Mad Hatter's Tea Party, then I kind of got carried away and we went on the most amazing journey to Wonderland.



There is a recession at the moment and I'm proud of how much homemade stuff I've made to be able to make this party look fabulous but is in fact just a lot of old cardboard.

We sent out party invitations, little teapots and asked people to come dressed for Wonderland.

The girls arrived beautifully dressed in pretty dresses, witches, fairies and hats and Tilly of course was dressed as Alice.

As I wasn't sure who knew the story so I shortened the story and had printed out pictures from Disney's animated version as visual aides to help.
They sat on the rug and we went through the first part of the story, Alice imagining a different world, seeing a rabbit wearing clothes and talking, chasing him down the hole, falling and then shrinking and getting bigger after eating cookies. We ended the first part of the story as she whooshed through the keyhole into Wonderland and saw the rabbit again.

As they were only 4, it was good to keep the story sections short. So I asked who wanted to go to Wonderland, a place where nothing was as it seemed? And with that, I told them first we'd need to crawl through a tunnel and see if we could find a white rabbit.
I had borrowed a crawling tunnel from a friend and covered it in an old dark scout blanket of Richard's. I had placed a small white rabbit with each of the girls' names on around the downstairs of the house and told them they had to find their own.

After they'd all been found I gathered them in a room and produced some 'Eat Me' cookies. I asked if they could remember what happened in the story.
I had drawn with permanent marker and cut out 7 Alices on Shrinkable plastic. They each sat down and coloured them in. We then shrank Alice with some magic* in the oven.

Then it was time for part two of the story. We covered her walking through Wonderland and talking to the flowers, meeting the Cheshire Cat and finally going to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Throughout both sections of the story, I made sure that the key points of anything in the activities were included (going down a path with lots of signs, a dormouse in teapot etc).
I ended on the section about it being an un-birthday party and who had an un-birthday today?* All of them. Happy un-birthday to you all.

At the end of the story, we all got our coats and shoes on and went to see if we could find that white rabbit. I had put signs on the path, Go Back, Up, Down, This Way, That Way. Our house has a side gate, so I lead them down the path, along the outside wall of our house and down the side of the house. I'd opened the back gate and at the end I'd put a large painted white rabbit. As they saw it, they ran and entered into the back garden (which had been hidden throughout the party) which had been transformed into the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.




I'd put up our gazebo, put bunting around the inside, put large paintings of the Mad Hatter and the March Hare on either side of the gazebo. I'd hung a large Cheshire Cat above their heads. There were five paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. I'd made large paper flowers of all different colours and put them all around the poles (I'd stuck a few eyes and mouths on some!)
We used our large, long dining room table and placed it in the centre of the gazebo. The middle seat for Matilda was transformed into a large throne (like Alice's), just with painted cardboard and string.
I'd used an old white tablecloth, paper doilies, golden plates, vases of bright coloured flowers all along the table. There were some small playing cards scattered over the table.
I'd tried to get some cheap teacups from charity shops but they were all too pricey, instead I found some small sherry glasses for 50p. I'd painted each girl's name on them with glass paint. We drank 'tea' (pink juice) from the teapots on the table.
I'd made each girl a small top hat on an alice band and left on their place setting. These were made from toilet rolls and paper plates, covered in tissue paper (an extra activity could have been decorating them with stickers and glitter).



The food:
Bread and butter-flies (butter on bread cut out in shape of butterflies with cookie cutter)
Little sausages, tomatoes, breadsticks, mini cheeses, carrot sticks, cucumber sticks, mini cheese savouries (shapes clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades). All of these were served in small glass bowls or in teacups and saucers.
pink and blue mushroom sweeties
Pudding was a ice cream cone cup, stuck on a large Rich Tea biscuit with a cut Haribo ring stuck on the side like a teacup, filled with grapes and blueberries.
There were also smaller teacups, a party ring with a marshmallow stuck in the middle, hundreds and thousand sprinkles and a cut Haribo ring stuck on the side. These were VERY yummy and perfect size.

In between their main tea party and their pudding, we took a break to play some more games.

We played Pin the Grin. I'd painted a large Cheshire Cat and they had to pin the grin. The winner got a wind up white rabbit.

We came inside and played Pass the Parcel (playing Alice in Wonderland's A very merry un-birthday to you).

Went back outside to the Mad Hatter's Tea Party for pudding and the birthday cake.


The cake:
A giant teapot shaped cake, with 4 little teacups around the cake board to put the candles in. There was a sleepy dormouse inside the lid.



Goody bag contents:
White rabbit with name on (from search)
Tiny Alice
Personalised glass
Top hat alice band
Marshmallow teacup
Flower lolly (homemade from candy melts & a flower ice cube tray)
A miniature magnetic picture frame with their initial in
A white rabbit cookie
All in a homemade goody bag made from left over fabric in my fabric cupboard.






I *really* enjoyed creating the party and absolutely loved the end result. Now it is all over I'm already wondering what can we do for next year!