3/6 Winnie's Mad Hatter Tea Party

On 3/6 I hosted Winnie's baby shower for her first baby. I had decided on an Alice in Wonderland tea party theme because Winnie likes afternoon tea and not because of Tim Burton's remake although its release worked in my favor.

Once I had the theme worked out, it was fairly easy to figure out the rest -- the menu, games, favors/prizes, and decorations. Decorations were fairly minimal. I bought some paper lanterns and found these Alice in Wonderland Stained Glass coloring books (http://www.amazon.com/Wonderland-Stained-Coloring-Little-Activity/dp/048640305X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272312367&sr=8-2) that we also used for the scrapbook. We strung up the paper lanterns with pages from the coloring book.

The menu was an assortment of tea, sparkling lemonade, three kinds of tea sandwiches (cucumber, egg salad, and smoked salmon), home-made cranberry orange scones (they ended up kind of dry), cheese puffs from Trader Joe's (I wanted mini quiches), and Kara's Cupcakes (because Winnie likes 'em). I borrowed serving trays and tea pots to go with the mismatch theme of the Alice in Wonderland tea party. I'm bummed I didn't get a shot of the table.

We played three games -- Baby Food Tea Sandwich game, Baby Bonnet Game, and Musical Teacups. For the first game, I made tea sandwiches with baby food and had members of each team guess the flavor. Winnie was a team in herself and did not get any right. We'll chalk it up to inexperience and pregnancy. Pregnancy affects appetite so maybe it affects taste.

For the next game, each team made baby hats (since this was a Mad Hatter tea party) out of various materials with only about 10 minutes to do so. All the hats were pretty creative, but Winnie picked the leopard hat as her favorite. She likes animal prints.

Leilani is presenting her team's creation. She was one of the few that wore a hat as I requested. Thanks for getting into the spirit, Lei!

 

I introduced the last game by reading a part from the book that describes the Mad Hatter and March Hare moving down a space at the table to use a new tea setting. Instead of teacups we used our handy plastic restaurant kid cups, and the guests passed them around to lullaby versions of Cold Play songs (a CD Winnie at one point had registered for). 

For prizes I found bath tea bags at Paper Source (http://search.paper-source.com/index/_/N-/Ntt-bath%20tea). I was looking for tea-themed stationary when I found these. So cute and a nice price. For favors, I had heard about Alice in Wonderland-inspired fingernail polish. So I did an online search and found a 4 pack that had each color in mini sizes. I bought enough for each guest to get one polish and for Winnie to get a whole pack.

I wasn't sure how well everyone was going to fit since our dining room and living room aren't that big, but everyone seemed comfortable enough. And I thought I was going to manage the party prep okay with Hansel's help, but Hansel ended up feeling under the weather. Thank goodness Vicki came over earlier than planned to help. I'm also grateful to Hogene, Margie, and Lara who arrived on the early side and were able to help with some last-minute stuff.

Besides registering at a few places, Winnie also welcomed second-hand stuff. She got some really cute new clothes and accessories and some great used toys and gear. The most important thing is Winnie seemed to have a really good time.