alex in wonderland's birthday tea party

you've seen all the blogs of me crafting and sewing and cooking and such all leading up to the alex in wonderland birthday tea party - and here it is. alex turned 4 on 1.1.11! yes, she's a new year's baby - yay. what a fun party, and here's a collection image of most of the decorations and details. i was planning on pulling out all the tea sets for the party, but there just wasn't enough room for all of them (seriously, we have at least two more play tea sets, and you can't even see all the sets out in the photos, not to mention all of our real tea sets). you can see the toadstool i made (surrounded by the cutest disney alice in wonderland plush dolls called pookalooz), the dress and purse i made for alex (i love the inside of the sleeve cuffs and the liner of the purse), i made several "alex" banners around the house (cut out of paper, tea pot shapes and circles and alice silhouettes, hung up with clothes pins or decorative tape), the mini (or not so mini - they're kind of big actually) 3-tiered cakes all in different colors, the origami hanging balls that i showed a teaser of in an earlier blog (i absolutely love the way the double-sided polka dotted origami papers turned out), and the wax tea candle set. then of course the other details like the play tea tier treat set, the tin tea sets, the alice barbie, the madame alexander dolls (which were mcdonald's happy meal toys), and the flamingo and hedgehogs. i thought the pink piano that alex received for christmas added a nice touch to the look of the party too (even though there's no specific nod to alice in wonderland with it, but it seems to fit wonderfully). since it's christmas time also, we left the tree all set up and decorated and we use all our spode for dinner (and alex even has a children's spode tea set that is adorable). alex was dressed as alice (whom she still calls alison in wonderland - she's pretty determined that alison is the correct name), i was the red queen, her dad was the mad hatter, and lots of other guests dressed up as characters from alice in wonderland or dressed for tea with fun tea hats. i do have pictures of everyone together - i'm going to attempt to photoshop all the different group shots to get one super group shot that has everyone's best look (i might have to update this blog post once i make the super photo). happy new year to you all and cheers to a whole new year of crafting.

here's the photo of the party people. you should be able to find: the dormouse, the pink grand-mudder, a pink zebra, the white rabbit, the white queen, tweedle dum, six flowers, the march hare, the red queen, alice and the mad hatter.

the red queen's skirt

i know, i'm still crafting for alex's birthday party - i'm almost there though (well, i have no choice, her birthday is almost here. so whatever gets done gets done and if it doesn't then it doesn't). so, here's the red queen's skirt that i will be adorning. i was actually hoping to have lost some weight by now so i wanted to make an adjustable skirt, so i made a wrap skirt. i didn't lose any of that weight, but the skirt will fit me wonderfully anyways and i won't have to panic because it's too small. the skirt is basically a wrap skirt but with three layers and a waist band and snap closures. i know it doesn't look anything like either of the red queen dresses that you know from the movies, but i wasn't going for straight costume, just a nod to the red queen - hence the color scheme. so i found some fun bright fabric: there's a black with white polka dot layer (bottom), yellow stripe layer (middle) and red dotted layer (top). i left all the edges raw and embellished the layers of the skirt with ribbon. hopefully with my shoes and crown i'll fill the role of red queen well enough.

alex in wonderland tea party candles

i found some fun tea party 3d molds that i thought would be super cute for alex's alice in wonderland tea party birthday party. my original thought was to make soap, but then thought wow those would be large soaps. then i thought i'd make chocolates, and then realized that was going to make a huge piece of chocolate that nobody was going to eat. so finally it dawned on me that they would make great candles and still be useful. i had never made candles in a 3d mold like this before and wasn't even quite sure how to go about doing that but hey, i like to experiment. so, i bought some wax pellets for melting, some candle coloring, and some vanilla candle scent. i guessed on the amount of everything to use, but i melted it all together in a double broiler (make sure you use a double broiler dedicated to wax though, it will not be usable for food anymore) and then poured in the molds to set overnight. before the first halves were completely dry i put in the wicks for the pieces that would get them. the next day or so, i mixed and melted up another batch of purple vanilla scented wax and filled the molds again (after i popped out the first halves and pieces). as quickly as i filled the molds i laid the first halves (excluding the spoons, lids and plates) on top of their corresponding pieces. i let those set overnight and popped them out of their molds when all dry and ready. the spoons and plates and such all look great (not usable as candles but cute for decoration all the same). the tea cups and pots didn't exactly stay together as planned so i split them back into halves and mixed up another batch of purple vanilla scented wax. i then dipped the halves in to the melted wax like glue and stuck the two corresponding halves together and then dipped all their seams into the wax as well. that seems to have worked pretty well, doesn't look perfect, but i like them, they're cute. in fact, i wanted them to be relatively strong, so i did a few rounds of dipping the finished candles back into melted wax to layer up the seams a little bit. i think these will look great all lit up in the restroom for the party.

the red queen's crown

i know this doesn't look anything like the red queen's crown from either the cartoon or the live-action movie, but i'm not a big fan of gold and didn't particularly want to craft this skinny tall crown and then try to figure out how to keep it on my head. i'm the red queen for alex's birthday party and she told me i needed a crown so i decided to make my interpretation of a crown that i would be willing to wear and that would be comfortable. i'm also hoping that during dress-up times i can wear this hat now instead of the child sized tiaras that i usually have to wear that are too small and dig into my head. this was a pretty easy crown to make and the longest part was hand sewing the details and trim. i got this silver vinyl fabric from the store, i cut two long pieces that would be long enough to fit around my head - one piece wider and longer than the other. i cut out poster board to the size of what i wanted the finished piece to be. i glued the larger piece of fabric to the poster board - folding over the edges like wrapping a present. i then glued the smaller piece of fabric to the other side covering up the seams and inside part of the crown. i then glued the ends together and held them until dry with some binder clips. i found some silver trim in the ribbon section of the store and hand sewed on the top bead strand and then the silver band at the bottom of the crown. i was going to add more embellishments to make it more red queenish like a red heart button or something, but then i decided to keep it general thinking a simple silver crown might have the opportunity to get reused at some time.

alex in wonderland's toadstool

i'm not sure how i thought of making this but it popped into my head one day that it would be cute to make a mushroom seat as part of alex in wonderland's party decorations. i also imagined that she could sit here while opening her presents - it turned out a bit too tall for that but still cute and alex loves it. of course, the idea didn't pop into my head until after we were out of wood or my husband had already split it all, but i mentioned my idea to my friend. kim and her husband, joe, had just recently taken down some trees and generously gave me this great piece of wood for my idea (thank you kim and joe) - i think it's oak but i'm not exactly a tree connoisseur so i could be way off. next, i bought some fabric (the red and white are corduroy and the green is just soft and fuzzy cotton) and bought a round pillow for the top. basing the measurements off the size of the pillow my husband cut out two circles of plywood (best way i found to draw a circle that big was to tie two pens together with a string that measured out to be the radius). i cut out the fabric pieces and appliqued the white circles on to the red top. i staple gunned the green fabric on to the bottom circle and white corduroy to the top circle. i then drilled holes and attached the two circles to the log with wood screws. i already had bug sprayed the log and then polyurethaned a couple of coats. i couldn't get the angle to use a staple gun for the red mushroom top so i glued that and then stitched in place. i'm not entirely pleased with the puckering i have in a few places with the red fabric but overall i think it turned out well. and fairies and alice's alike look great posing with the toadstool.

the mad hatter's tie

i've been madly trying to get stuff done for the holidays, but we're all a little mad here, right? so the mad hatter at alex's birthday party is going to be my husband, john. since he is also the one who takes the little one around the neighborhood for trick-or-treating i wanted to get his costume done before halloween. plus alex is alice for halloween (as well as her birthday) it's only fitting that she gets an escort from the mad hatter. a friend of my husband was generous enough to lend me a couple of his bow ties to use as a template - thank you shaffron. i traced the bow ties (he lent me a regular bow tie and a wider bow version also) onto large paper that i taped together and then freehanded a seam allowance. i really should have busted out the ruler and redrawn a pattern after i traced it but alas i was lazy - and this hatter's tie will be a little crazier than originally planned (i will redraw for future bow tie making). but i got this awesome fabric (which if you're a fan of project runway you may have noticed this exact fabric in one of mondo's designs), lined it with interfacing, sewing wrong sides together then flipped and hand stitched the open seam. now all we have to do is learn how to tie it!

alex in wonderland's purse

i had extra material from making the alex in wonderland dress so i decided to make a purse to match. my original plan was to make a square shell and add blue fabric flowers all over the outside. i happened to already have a black purse handle so i used that to gauge the sizing of the shell of the purse. i made the inside lining of the purse that great black and white stripe fabric from the dress and then i cut out circles from the blue fabric to make the roses. i cut the circles into spirals thinking that could be rolled up into a nice fabric rose. well, i didn't like the look of the rose, i don't know if that's the proper way to go about trying to make a fabric rose or not but it was too tight for my liking so i decided to take those spirals and just hand sew them onto the purse shell to make ruffles. i love how it turned out and i think it's a great accessory for alex in wonderland.

alex in wonderland's dress

as i've mentioned before, alex's fourth birthday party is an alex in wonderland tea party theme. i've been planning and crafting alice inspired clothing and decorations. and i've been trying to get back into sewing - i have not made any clothes (except for a simple wrap skirt) in over ten years! i was originally planning on finding a plain white dress that i liked for alex and then dyeing it and embellishing it, but since i want to get better at sewing and i couldn't find a base dress that i liked i decided to start from scratch. i used a burda pattern 9595 dress A. i'm surprised actually that the dress turned out so well - i absolutely love the fabric choices i found, and the ribbon trim embellishments are great. the only thing i don't like about the dress is that it's too big for alex and she looks frumpy - i have never been good at fitting the clothes that i make - but i guess more practice is what it takes. it'll still work though, she just might be swimming in her dress - but i suppose that kind of goes with the whole size changing aspect of alice in wonderland anyways (at least that's what i'll use as my excuse).

shoe project: pair 1

i bought seven pairs of plain different colored china doll cotton shoes and am planning on experimenting with each pair.  this is the first pair that i've made. first of all, for alex's 4th birthday party (months and months away) the theme is an alice in wonderland tea party and i'm supposed to be the red queen. these are going to be my red queen shoes, the fabric on the flowers is the same fabric that i am using for my skirt. so first thing i did with these shoes was to try to screenprint a houndstooth white print on them. i've never tried screenprinting shoes before, it wasn't awesome. but then i took a black sharpie and outlined some of the pattern and i think that saved it - i don't mind it looking rough and unfinished, that's kind of the look i'm going for. when i tried ironing in the screenprint (not that i plan on running in the rain or snow in these but still wanted to try to set them a little) the white seemed to soak in a little and fade but that's ok. then i cut out circles of skirt fabric in sheer red, black and white polka dot and yellow stripe (which you can't see in this photo) and used a red button to make flowers to embellish each shoe. overall, i like how they turned out and i think they'll look super cute with my red queen skirt once i actually make that.

alice in wonderland inspired necklaces

so, i love alice in wonderland and have been waiting for a long time to see the tim burton version in theatres. in honor of the movie i wanted to make a necklace to wear. also, my daughter is going to be alice in wonderland this year for halloween (her blonde hair and blue eyes are perfect for the part) so i wanted to make her an accessory for her costume as well. i found some of those little jewelry making bottles, printed out a couple of "drink me" papers. i prepped those papers with a couple layers of mod podge glue and just dropped them in the bottles. then i filled them with resin (i attempted to dye the resin a light blue using enamel since that's what i had on hand, but the enamel sank to the bottom and kind of separated from the resin. but it looks sort of neat so it turned out to be a happy mistake). then for my necklace i just macramed a chain and for my daughter's necklace i actually used a chain that was originally from a clothing label that i kept.