Any Excuse to Party: June 2013

A couple of months ago, my daughter Annie took it upon herself to memorize the poem "The Jabberwocky." She really loves reading Lewis Carroll. So we began discussing ideas for her 13th birthday party, and when the idea of a mad hatter tea party came up she wouldn't let it go. I personally loved the idea because I already had everything I needed in my party supplies. A giant table: check. Lots if mis-matched chairs: check. Oodles of paper lanterns: double check.

I kept the table decor simple with a runner down the middle. I borrowed some tea pots from a friend and filled in with some of my own. Hanging over the table I used a lamp shade skeleton and hung vintage playing cards from fishing line to make it appear as if they were cascading down to the middle of the table.

We filled the cute "drink me" bottles with raspberry lemonade punch (recipe: can of pink lemonade concentrate, bottle raspberry soda, some water and ice).

Aren't my hot air balloon lanterns adorable? My girls also made direction signs for the tree. Because nothing makes sense in Wonderland.

Last minute we decided to do an activity. I quickly scanned Pinterest and found this tutorial to make mini mad hatter hats.

http://www.desumama.com/mad-hatter-tea-party-hat-tutorial

The girls got so creative and worked on them for almost an hour! They turned out so cute.

Annie's wearing one we had already. We put the hats on headbands and the girls loved them.

Pink lemonade cakes. A bhg recipe I saw last summer and happened to clip and save. Annie actually requested pink lemonade cake so I was excited to finally try the recipe. I actually made six cute little bundts but could only get three out intact. So glad I did backup cupcakes. They were tasty!