My eldest daughter had been dreaming of her 'wonderland' themed party for a year, and came up with some pretty fantastic ideas as to how it would all work. Between us we managed to transform our home inside & out... here are some of the things we created to add to the magic! I put my background in art to use, and painted some props for the day... they included a small door for the children to crawl through, a rose bush for one of the party games (see further down for details), and my all time fav... a caterpillar with the face cut out, just like the old seaside carnival ones where you stick your head through the gap.
Then came the sewing...on the list were... a full Alice outfit, queen of hearts costume (for my 3yr old), playing cards, tweedle dee & dumb hats, mad hatter, march hare, white rabbit, door mouse...
Each child was able to join in as we loosely retold the tale of Alice in Wonderland. One of my daughter's best friends was the white rabbit... to start the fun, she ran through the house with rabbit ears and a giant cardboard pocket watch shouting the classic "I'm late, I'm late..." The other kids chased her down the hall till they came to the kitchen where we had placed a small round table with some bottles labeled 'drink me' and the small door prop was there to crawl through to the deck. 
There were the classic party games with an 'Wonderland' feel... Pass the parcel, was in place of the Dodo 'Walrus & Carpenter' scene.
Painting the roses red - I cut out white card in the shape or roses and gave each child a red crayon or pencil to colour them in, they then put on an over sized Hatter's hat and played pin the rose on the rosebush.
The Mad Hatter's tea party was the main event! I called around the family & friends to get teapots and tea cups of all shapes and sizes (I even got some off trademe). We had 'decorate your own cupcake' , with bowls of coloured icing, sprinkles, lollies etc... The teapots were filled with a variety of juices, lemonades, water and so on...it was a huge hit!
We put up a gazebo in the back yard and had dining chairs around a full length table.
Then there was the cake! My daughter came up with the idea of having a pocket watch cake and getting the white rabbit to bring it to the tea party...just like in the story...we filled it with jam and cream!
I hope you have enjoyed this post - it was such a fun party, I loved sharing it with you all!
