Alice in Wonderland Tea Party

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• Have your invitations addressed to "For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen."


• Tell your guests not to be late for a very important date, like the White Rabbit.


• Ask them to meet you in Wonderland


• Put a teabag, playing cards, or other stuff together with the invitation into the envelope


• Shape your invitations like a playing card, tea bag, teapot or tea cup. Or make a top hat, and replace the 10/6 card with a card containing the party details.


• If you have tea pot shaped invitations and put a tag saying 'Read Me' on the paper handle.

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• Set up a long table, covered with all different kinds of teapots, mismatched teacups and saucers, chandeliers, etc. Have an assortment of 'odd' chairs around the table, so that people have to sit at different heights. Use a colorful tablecloth.


• Toss hats everywhere and fill them with flowers.


• Bright colors work really well for decorating your Alice in Wonderland party area. Spread out balloons and paper streamers.


• Hang colorful paper lanterns above the table.


• Put some red paint on white silk roses, and attach them to bushes or trees.


• Decorate your door so it represents the rabbit hole, or the looking glass, where people have to go through to enter the party. Or use a play tunnel.


• Draw rabbit tracks with chalk, or place paper cutouts on the driveway leading to the front door and all around the house.


• Create a poster of Cheshire cat and place it on the tree near the entrance or inside the house.


• Hang signs that say "This Way," "That Way," "Other Way," etc.


• Put some clocks in the room that are stopped at tea-time.


• Decorate the room with crooked mirrors, butterflies, flowers, and so forth. Scatter around any theme related toys you might have: flamingos, plush cats, rabbits, etc. Hang playing cards on fishing lines from the ceiling.


• Hang a branch to the ceiling with a Cheshire Cat plush (or just it's grin) in it.


• Cover the table with a pretty tablecloth. Spread out some playing cards on it.


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


• Put up a children's swimming pool to represent the pool of tears.


• Use tea set and inexpensive china cups, plates, and saucers. Place a plush mouse inside a teapot.


• Stuff a big Alice-like doll into a small doll-house.

• Give out such Alice in Wonderland party favors such as toy bracelets, sticker sheets, theme figurines, plush toys, mini teacups and saucers, cool pens, and so forth.



• Activity & Parade: A "Decorate A Hat" craft activity that the guests make and wear at the party and take home as a gift:
  Materials:
  Children-size straw hats
  "Silk" flowers
  Tissue paper flowers
  Ribbon and bows
  Glue (glue gun for older children/teens)
  
  Let the children decorate. When the guest are finished decorating their hats, have a parade with music to show them off. Present awards for their accomplishments. Ensure you have a ribbon or prize for everyone. Make up categories - most creative, most beautiful, silliest, etc.

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• Play lawn croquet: With hedgehog plush toys as balls, or perhaps hedgehogs painted on the balls. Attach colored and stuffed socks to the end of the mallets and sew on eyes, to represent flamingos, or use a plush flamingo. Create large cardboard playing cards for the arches.


• Play chess. You can do this on a normal sized chessboard, or you can make a huge chessboard in your garden and have your guests play the pieces!


• Play "pin the grin on the Cheshire Cat"


• Turn on the TV and play Alice in Wonderland movies during the party.


• Paint eggs so they resemble Humpty Dumpty. Or buy white tea pots and tea cups, and paint your own tea set.


• Do the Caucus race. Make your guests run around in a circle, and when you shout 'stop' the last one to sit down/run to the middle is out. Or make a caucus version of the game musical chairs, where you remove one of the chairs each round and people have to find a chair to sit on when the music (the caucus race song from the Disney movie) stops.


• Make up silly riddles.


• Play 'Paint the roses red'. Buy some fabric white roses and red paint (or markers). The person (or team) who finishes painting his rose first wins. You could give time penalties for sloppy painting or spilled drops. You could also set a general time limit and have someone dressed as the Queen of Hearts storm into the room when the time is up.


• Buy some basic top hats and let your guests decorate them.


• Hide a small golden key or a White Rabbit plush and have your guests find it


• Do a quiz with trivia questions based on the Alice stories


• Play games with a 'Contrariwise' theme: make people name stickers, where you write their names on backwards. Everyone must call everyone else by their backwards name, or risk a forfeit. You could invent a game where names must be called, or you could just have this going on throughout the party. Also, you could ask people questions and they must give the opposite answer. Or, say the answer, but backwards. For most of these games, some kind of time pressure is essential to make it more difficult and to make people make mistakes and have to do forfeits. The more adult the party, the more adult the questions. 'Have you ever done xyz?' would be interesting if people have to say the opposite. It becomes more like a truth or dare game then.


• Make a game of Clean Cup: have guests assemble at table. They fill their plates with food and make their tea (or other drink) as they like for a certain amount of time. When the time is over, say "Clean cup. Clean cup. Move down. Move down." The guests move to the next place and put more food on the plate and change the tea however they wish. This goes on and on until everyone returns to their own place setting. Now, everyone must eat and drink what the others have put. Prizes can be awarded to the most weird concoction.


• Make coloring pages for children so they can paint the roses red.


• Make teams, put a bucket (or large teapot) with tea on one side and an empty one on the other side of a course. Your guests have to fill a teacup, run to the other side (with the cup in their hands, or balancing them on their heads...), and empty the cup there. The team that has filled the bucket first wins.


• Have an "I'm late!" potato sack race, in which everyone has to hop to the finish like the White Rabbit.


• Gather a lot of teacups and put them upside down on a table. Under one of them, you hide a Dormouse (or White Rabbit). Your guests take turns and may lift one cup per turn to see whether something is underneath it. The one who finds the Dormouse wins. You can make the game harder by inventing extra rules, like shuffling the cups after each turn.


• Get a hookah and attach a bubble blower to the end (or create one by bending a wire), so you can blow soap bubbles. Who makes the largest?


• 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 about 30 seconds.
  Have the birthday child be the leader first. Provide a bunny ear headband and a bunny tail for the Rabbit to wear.


• Mad Hatter's Special: Place a top hat on a chair. Have the guests throw beanbags into the hat from a distance for points.


• Cool Musical Chairs: Have the kids play classic Musical Chairs to the Unbirthday song from the Disney movie.


• Wonderland Obstacle Course: Set up an obstacle course in the backyard using chairs, boxes, hula hoops, and other objects. Have the children go through the course one at a time. Explain where they need to jump over, walk around, or crawl through.
  As a variation, create a maze out of large appliance boxes. (You can get them for free from appliance stores.) Use duck tape to connect the boxes. Young kids will have a blast going through the maze.


• Mirror Activity: Purchase inexpensive plastic mirrors. Have the kids decorate back of their mirrors with sequins, glitter and fake jewels.
  Start off by putting a thick coat of craft glue. To outline the outside edge of the mirror, lay a string of sequins on the edge. Then trim off any extra. Place jewels on the glue-covered area. Sprinkle some glitter all over. Let the glue dry thoroughly.


• Tea Spoon Relay: Split the group into 2 teams. Give first players on each team a spoon and a sugar cube.
  Have the players race from one side of the play area to the other holding a sugar cube on the spoon. They pass the spoon with the sugar cube to the next person in line. If the kids drop the sugar cube, they have to start their relay leg over again. The team to finish first, wins.


• Mad Hatter Says: Play a theme version of Simon Says game.

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• Alice in Wonderland Party Food Ideas


- Attach labels with the words 'eat me' and 'drink me' to all kinds of things, like the sugar bowl and bottles.
- Bake little cupcakes with the words 'eat me' written on them in icing
- Bake cookies in the shape of the letters EAT ME, and/or hearts, clubs, diamond and spades. You can also use cookie cutters to shape sandwiches.
- Glue the lid on a jar of jam, so nobody is able to open it. You know, the rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday -- but never jam to-day...
- From a loaf of bread you can create bread-and-butterflies
- Edible mushrooms, pepper soup or Mock Turtle soup, oysters, plum-pudding and a leg of mutton.
- Set out conversation hearts.
- Dodo's hot dogs
- Pizza cut in miniature slices
- Marshmallows
- Skittles
- Cinnamon buns
- Biscotti
- Scones

Pinwheel Sandwiches
Cut away the crust from bread slices. (Use white or whole wheat bread.) Put various sandwich fillings over each slice. Roll up the bread tightly. Cut each slice into fourths and secure with a toothpick. Cover and keep chilled until serving time.

Gelatin Flowers
For this recipe, you'll need two different 6-oz packages of flavored gelatin.
Place one package of gelatin in a bowl, and pour 1 cup of boiling water over it. Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved. Repeat the procedure with remaining gelatin in the other bowl. Pour each gelatin mixture into a baking pan. Chill for at least three hours.
Put each pan in warm water for 15 seconds to loosen the gelatin. Use cookie cutter to cut out flower shapes. Arrange the gelatin flowers on a serving dish.

Cheshire Cat Snacks
Fill Ziploc bags with nuts and dried fruit. Have the children munch on the snacks in between the activities.


• Alice in Wonderland Birthday Party Cake Ideas


Straw Hat Cake
Bake a cake in a round 11-inch (six-cup) oven proof bowl. Sprinkle sugar on a plate and invert the cake on to it, frost and decorate with sugar flowers. Use fondant to make a ribbon.

Bonnet/Hat Cake
Bonnet cake Bake a single round cake and one small soufflé dish cake. The little cake will sit on top of the large cake to form a hat. Ice with yellow frosting. Use broad strap licorice for the black bow and flowers and candles in the brim.

Top Hat (Mad Hatter) Cake
This cake is made by cutting ovals from two 8x12 cakes.

Teapot Cake
Prepare "spout" and "handle" pieces a couple of days in advance. Purchase fondant, which you can color and form into correct shapes. Cut thin dowels into five- and eight-inch lengths. Insert the dowels into spout and handle before setting them aside to dry.

Bake two cakes -- one in large glass batter bowl, and the other one -- in 8" round pan. Spread frosting on the 8" layer. Next, place the dome-shaped cake on top. Frost the cake, and then place the handle and spout pieces on the teapot.


• Alice in Wonderland Party Drink Ideas:


- Order (or create) some custom made tea bags or tea favors for your guests
- Tea
- Hot Chocolate

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Soundtracks from movies, like Disney's cartoon movie and Tim Burton's movie.
- 'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane
- 'I am the Walrus' by the Beatles
- 'Looking Glass' by Hypnogaja
- 'Through The Looking Glass' by Symphony X
- 'What are you waiting for' by Gwen Stefany
- 'Don't come around here no more' by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
- 'Heads Will Roll' by YEAH YEAH YEAHS
- 'Alice In Wonderland' by Wynter Gordon
- 'Sunshine' by Aerosmith
- 'Alice, Alice' by Victim Effect
- 'Alice' by Lisa Mitchell
- 'Off with your head' by Mz. Ann Thropik
- 'Fairytale' by Omnia
- 'Jabberwocky' by Omnia
- 'The Streets fell into my window' by The Red Paintings
- 'Down the Rabbit Hole' by Adam Lambert
- 'Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum' by Bob Dylan