Rose Wand

I made rose wands for my daughters Alice in Wonderland birthday party. I gave them out after they played croquet at the party.  I made the rose wands by cutting a dowel 12 inches or longer and wrapped the dowel in ribbon. Then glued ribbon and rick rack in red and white on top of one end of the the wrapped dowel. Lastly, I attached a red rose that I took off the stem and used alot of glue so it stayed even when tugged on.

Tissue paper flowers

I made these tissue paper flowers for Keira's birthday party. For my flowers I used a tissue paper package and cut the paper in half and used 8 layers of tissue paper using two colors for each flower.

Supplies:
1 package of multicolored tissue or crepe paper
1 package of green pipe cleaners
Scissors

Directions: Take four to five sheets of the tissue paper and layer them (if you want multicolored flowers, use different colors). Cut into 8-inch squares. Keeping the sheets layered, take one set of squares and fold it like an accordion so it looks like a thin rectangle. At the center of the rectangle, cut a small v-shaped notch on both sides. Take the end of a pipe cleaner and twist it around the notch. With the stem pointing straight down, gently pull up one layer of tissue into the center. Pull up the remaining layers, one by one. Repeat for the other side of the flower. Once all the layers are pulled up, fluff them in place to look natural. Continue making more flowers with the remaining stacks of squares.

Tips and variations: For sturdier stems, wrap two pipe cleaners together. Cut smaller or larger squares to change the size of your flowers. Add more layers for thicker flowers or less layers for thinner ones. For a shiny effect, dip the top edges in white glue and then dip in loose glitter. Glue a pin on the back of a flower for a fluffy lapel decoration. Make smaller flowers and string them together as garland.

Alice in Wonderland Tea Party

Here is the Alice in Wonderland tea party table from Keira's birthday party. I covered the tables with a plastic table cloth and lace cloth overlay and folded a piece of fabric for the table runner for more color on the table. I made flower arrangements with dollar tree flowers and pots I had around the houses. I added picks with printed images of alice in wonderland charaters. I also added goggle eyes to some of the flowers add attached buttflies. I picked up tea cups and tea pots at my local goodwill store. I printed place cards for each place setting and made mini top hat hair clips for the girls and  mad hatter hats for the boys. I purchased latterns from the dollar store in many colors and hung them over the tables. I had so much fun coming up with the ideas and crafts I made for this tea party. The kids really love it. It was a big hit. I will keep posting Keira's Alice in Wonderland projects I did for her party .

Alice in Wonderland Characters

Yesterday was Keira's Birthday Party. And I made these Alice in Wonderland characters for her croquet games. I drew the characters on foam board. Painted and then used a steak knife to cut them out (I first used scissors and xacto knife those didn't work). They were somewhat time consuming, but the end result was worth it and the kids loved it. Will be showing more of the ideas I made for her party this week. Let me know what you think.

Cotton Candy

The art of making cotton candy

Watermelon and blue raspberry cotton candy

Today I found out that making cotton candy isn't as easy as it looks. After a few tries ( ok, quite a few tries) I finally came up with what cotton candy should look like. The trick is not to place the paper cone down to close to the heating element. Its more of a grab, roll and pull motion above the bowl that works. With my first attempt the machine wasn't hot enough and it had to many crystals in it. The second and third times were better because it was hotter. I finally figured out that I need to pull the sugar "web" way out of the bowl instead of keeping the cone inside the bowl and than twirl and spin  the sugar "web". This made it more light and fluffy instead of pressed together.  We bought a small cotton candy machine today with the birthday party in mind, but we now have lots of plans for it. It takes 2 hard candies to spin a decent size cotton candy. This time I used Jolly Rancher hard candy. The cotton candy tasted just like the flavor of the candy. My favorite was the grape. Any hard candy can be used, even in different combinations. Sugar free candy is a good option also. I plan trying a root beer flavor and a cream flavor candy to see if it taste like root beer float (lol).  I really think the kids will get a kick out of this.

Mini Top Hats

Hi everyone,

I decided that I would share some of the mini top hats that I made for my daughters birthday party a little early. I really like the way they turned out. I was looking for ideas on making a "Mad Hatter" hat for the Alice in Wonderland birthday party when I ran across  mini top hats on the internet. Right away all kinds of idea popped in my head and I thought how perfect this would be for the girls to wear at the party. Again I used most of the stuff I had on hand to make them. I plan on placing them at each girls place setting  at the tea party "Mad Hatter Tea Party" so they can wear it during the tea. For the boys they will wear a mad hatter hat. I used fabric, flowers, feather, ribbons and two clips each for attaching to hair to the side of the head (I will be posting pictures of the girls actually wearing it during the party).