I've started and stopped this post a million times, I think I'm just not able to really sum up everything I've worked on so long into one thread or post, but I am slowly doing recaps of each area/project on my blog - so I've decided I'll start a thread that can serve as reference for future party planners on all things Alice - be it a movie premeir party for the Burton flick, a Merry Unbirthday, Mad Tea Party, or a Halloween Bash like mine - I'll try to keep adding here as I remember tips & tricks.
Invitations: I made postcards through Vistaprint for about $6/100, using an image I had Etsy seller Solocosmo create for me - she took my headshot and turned it into the Cheshire Cat with a creepy moon & barren trees in the background. I added the eerie quote "we're all mad here" and party details on the back, sent them out in early September (after a facebook save the date in MARCH - HA!) and the early notice totally worked - despite our party being on Halloween night, we had TWICE the guests as the previous year, they all had AMAZING costumes, and people really went all out - most matching the theme. Pictures and step by step tutorial
here.
Yard Decorations: I wanted guests to pass "through the looking glass" and attempted to build my own archway which didn't work out, ended up altering a garden arch and it wasn't exactly what I wanted, but still gave the general idea. It was flanked by decapitated heads on pikes - the queen's "victims" - made from foam heads, paint, wigs, and a little fabric. For the first time I got spotlights to illuminate them, and there was no question it set the tone that SOMETHING BIG was going on inside. Photos & tutorial to come on my blog.
Living Room: Queen's court - First thing you saw was a huge "WONDERLAND" marquee on the arch between the living and dining areas, made from unfinished paper mache letters, painted with a dark red & black, and hung via 3M strips. I used a lot of "poker party" decorations from Anderson's Giant Party Store - the ceiling decor with hanging hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades were AWESOME. I hung 3 branching out in all directions from over the DDR game, and it totally filled up the ceiling and really made it feel festive. I used the fringe table skirts to line the top of the walls, and hung plastic flamingos and quotes from the queen (printed in the Beyond Wonderland font) all over the room. Also used the card suit stringers and cascades - hung everything from 3M strips and it comes off perfect, even with my 1940's plaster walls. I covered one wall all in black & white checkered plastic like a chessboard (through the looking glass has the chess story) and went all out on the fireplace replacing my giant collage frame of family photos with ones of human hearts, a garland of bloody weapons, bloody roses (painting the roses red), playing cards, heart lights, chess pieces, and various skeletons.
Pics & Tutorial HERE.
Rented DDR arcade game - this was a blast, despite a few glitches and the company being total assholes, the game itself is great for a party. It has music, it's both fun to play AND watch, and it lets people choose when they want to be participatory and when they just want to observe. Nearly everyone played at least once, there were lots of laughs. Highly recommend the game, but not the company I rented it from (
Fun Jumps in MN - see my rant here).
Dining Area - Giant Evil Flower Garden: I transformed some of my existing giant Gerbera daisies with big google eyes, and got a load of giant paper daffodils from a party store a while back that I added scary foam eyes to. They covered two walls, were interspersed with green net lights like vines, and my Dept 56 spiders made from bells & beads. Quotes from the snarky flowers in the disney version were scattered around the walls too. This was a HUGE impact, but very cheap and easy to do. Pics & tutorials
HERE on my blog.
Buffet Area: I used another of the poker party ceiling decorations, a cascade, and made a huge "EAT ME" sign to hang as a canopy. I had the quote "one side makes you smaller, the other makes you tall" under the "EAT ME" as well.
Pics here.
Menu: I made more than twice as much food as I needed, but eventually I've pawned most of it off. I had originally cut back, but then the bigger # of guests scared me and I added a bunch of stuff at the last minute. Oh well, live and learn. Here's what I served:
Baby Bread Bowls with Shrunken Spinach Dip - full tutorial to come on my blog,
bread bowl experiment here.
Tiny Tea Sandwiches - PB & J, Turkey Bacon, Ham & Cheese - I made 6 loaves of bread worth of sandwiches, chopped them into 1/4s, and then used little tooth picks with card suits on them as garnish & to keep them together.
Details & Photos here.
Teenie Weenies in BBQ Sauce - served in a crock pot. I think these were too rich, they didn't get eaten very much.
Magic Mushroom Turnovers - from a pack of frozen appetizers you just heat & eat - I was happy to find something on the mushroom theme that was easy, and vegetarian to boot (I had several). Also came with mini cheese souffles & seafood cakes which were both snapped up.
Review & photos here.
Peppered Pigs in a Blanket - the big hit of the evening! Found these in a random internet search, had my friend crank them out while I was getting ready, and man did people SCARF THEM DOWN. Super easy to make, and if you've read the book or seen the 1985 live action movie, they're perfect for the theme (we had 3 guests come as the dutchess!).
Recipe and tutorial here.
Puking Pumpkin Veggie Platter - added this late and to appease my vegetarians and add more options, had my dad cut the pumpkin then just ordered a veggie tray from Target and arranged it. Cheating? maybe. Easy? HELL YES.
Details & photo here.
Fresh Fanciful Fruit Platter - again, ordered it from Target. I've learned that washing & chopping fruit & veggies just takes a ton of time, and I shouldn't be frantically chopping anything when I'm already stressed out. Outsourcing can be good.
The Queen's Stolen Tarts - gorgeous but somewhat fragile & time consuming cookies,
sneak peek & recipe here, full tutorial to come on my blog.
Skeleton meat & cheese platter - the meat head is too gross for me, but last year I used a 3' skeleton, laid him out on a bed of lettuce, surrounded him in cheese and stuffed his rib cage with summer sausage. It was a huge hit. When I started panicking about the larger # of people, I decided to throw this together again and added some rondele cheese spreads as well. Full tutorial to come on my blog.
"Eat Me" Sweets - my infamous cupcakes with "eat me" piped in frosting, brownies, cream puffs (costco), mini cheesecakes (tutorial
here), home made peanut butter balls (
tutorial here), a layer cake made by my neighbor, and Halloween oreos.
The hallway that connects the dining room to the bathroom I covered completely in black & white checkered plastic and it was awesome - see tutorial
here.
For the kitchen I didn't want people to gather there since it's small and really a pass through to the lower level, so I dimmed the lights, hung white lanterns I snagged at the goodwill, and slapped little directional signs like in the disney movie that I just printed off of power point - saying things like "this way" "which way?" That way" etc. with arrows. Simple, not terribly original, but just fine.
I ran out of time and money and skipped the porch, though I did clean it - and thank goodness! It got so hot with all the people and baking and DDR-ing during the party that people really liked sitting out there. I did have an orange light bulb in, so they didn't think I had totally bailed on the area.
That gets me through the whole upstairs, I'll save the basement for the next post - I have this wicked feeling if this post gets eaten I'll throw a fit
Wicked Wonderland Party
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