Mad Hatter Tea Party: An Alice in Wonderland Themed Birthday.

This year for Jane’s 6th Birthday, we threw an Alice in Wonderland themed Mad Hatter Tea Party. I have so much fun planning these birthday parties and running wild with a theme (see her Paris Picnic birthday party from last year!). This year, she really got into planning it with me which made it even more fun. We sat down and rewatched the Alice in Wonderland movie, and took lots of notes on our favorite details we wanted to incorporate into the theme. Sharing all of the sources at the very bottom of the post, so keep scrolling if you want to recreate this idea! For the Alice in Wonderland themed party decor I used one of my favorite cost-savings party decoration tricks: printable downloads from Etsy! I found the vintage Alice in Wonderland poster, a great quote from the Alice in Wonderland book, and lots of digital files of the Alice in Wonderland characters that I had printed up at Staples and hung on the walls. (Pro tip: You can print black and white oversized prints for about $4 if you order them as blue prints!). I also found some really fun mad hatter tea party signage that had phrases like “time for tea” and “we’re all made here” that I hung around the room.

I visited our local thrift shop and collected mismatched tea cups and tea pots for the tables, and the kids thought it was so special to be drinking “tea” (lemonade, haha) out of REAL tea cups. The teapots doubled as decor, I filled some of them up with whimsical flowers and used them as centerpieces. My best find at the thrift store was a pack of oversized playing cards, reminiscent of the Queen of Hearts card guards, that we used as placements and tacked up around each of the doorways to our playroom. From the ceiling, we hung happy red mushroom lanterns, which made the space feel magical! Jane’s dress was essentially part of the decor too — my mom handmade the Alice in Wonderland party dress for her as her Christmas present this year, and it’s a masterpiece!
After the kids had their tea party, we handed out mini mad hatter hats that everyone decorated with markers and sticker gems. I found a template on Etsy to cut out and make the mini top hats, and then hot glued them to headbands. The kids were super engaged and loved wearing and showing off their creations! The hats were part of their goodie bags, which were also filled with Alice in Wonderland character stickers (these make-your-own-face sticker sheets are always a hit with kids!) and a copy of the Alice in Wonderland story book. I love the idea of giving books as party favors, you can often find some paperback versions for under $4 on Amazon. 

The food ideas were all inspired from the movie, we had bread and butterfly sandwiches (sun butter and jelly, cut out with a butterfly cookie cutter), celery sticks and grapes were made to look like The Caterpillar, and some fun bug and flower fruit bites from the scene where Alice shrinks down and sings with the flowers. For the adults attending the party, I made a variety of tea sandwiches and crudite, along with some festive “drink me” signage for the cocktails on our bar cart. Of course we needed to celebrate with dessert, and we made some festive red mushroom cupcakes – I just tinted vanilla icing red and cut mini marshmallows in half to make the dots. The rest of the dessert display was a variety of mini pastries from Trader Joes, I found a really cute Alice in Wonderland themed cake stand that held the sweets! 

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