It seems only natural for me to blog about my daughter's fifth birthday party on Mother's Day. I can't believe it was five years ago that I first became a mommy! I'm so blessed by my "little people" and I'm so proud to be their mother. Life would not be the same without them.
I wanted to do something a little different this year for Ella's party and give myself a chance to use some stored-up creativity that has be itchin' to get out - so, we went with a vintage Alice in Wonderland theme. Ella loves Alice in Wonderland so she was excited to have an Alice party. Graphic Design was my main profession before my days as a mommy so I thought it would be fun to design the invitations myself. Pictured above is the front of the invite. I cannot take credit for the illustration used on the invitation - it was done by an extraordinary papercut artist that I found on Etsy named,
Elsita. Her art is amazing, so check it out by clicking on her name.
Inside of the invitation (I took out my # and address, just in case any weirdos decide to stop by).
And here's my little princess admiring her decorations before the party.
It doesn't look like much in the picture, but I spent hours putting this all together. I printed out vintage illustrations of Alice in Wonderland and hung them with red ribbon. My mom made most of the tissue paper flowers and for the garland I used red ribbon and clipped playing cards on with tiny wooden clothes pins.
For the table, I decided to have a montage of different tea pots and tea cups, sort of like the Mad Hatter's table. The Alice in Wonderland fabric is a Japanese import from
Superbuzzy called Wonderland Flush. They had only two seperate yards left so I sewed table toppers out of both of the pieces. My favorite item on the table is the Paul Cardew Alice in Wonderland teapot that Court won for me on Ebay (you can view more Paul Cardew pieces at
The Teapot Shoppe). In the bottom left corner of the table there is an Alice teacup that Mimi purchased for Ella during our trip to Disney.
The black box of Wonderland Tea on the table is also from our trip to Disney.
In order to save $$, I made the cupcakes myself with a box cake mix. However, doing so did not save me any time. I thought it would be nice to make my own cupcake toppers so I printed out little circles of the White Rabbit and used a paper punch to punch out the red cardstock and then glued the pieces to toothpicks. I love the way they turned out, but mostly I felt relieved when they were done :o)
Since the party was held between lunch and dinner, we served appetizers, fruit and small sandwhiches.
Here are the party favors. The small paper bags contained goodies for the boys, toddlers and babies. Although you can't tell in the picture, the playing cards that are hanging by the ribbons are actually
Alice in Wonderland playing cards- click the link to see what they look like up close. Court purchased my set from Ebay.
All of the girls received jars containing Twizzlers candy. I designed the Eat Me labels, printed them on sticker paper and used the
Martha Stuart Doily Lace Edge paper punch on the bottom of the labels. A little ribbon finished them off nicely.
Along with the jar of candy, each girl got to pick out a nail polish from the jar.
I found this red drink tub at Wal-Mart for only $6! After printing out the Drink Me sign and using the doily paper punch, it tied in nicely with our theme - and looked much better than just having the ice chest out (although, we had it out any way since there were so many drinks).
I really wish I had a close-up of the items in this picture. There are a couple special items on display: Ella's signed picture of her with Alice from Disney World and her special Disney's Alice in Wonderland teapot from Mimi.
What good is a party without games, right?! Ella just had to play Limbo at her party! She didn't exactly bend backwards to go under the bar, but she had fun anyway :o)
Good, ol'fashioned sack race! The kids really enjoyed this. Christian just hopped along with them. We also played the Spoon/Egg race game. Thanks to the Dollar Spot at Target, every kid got a cool prize from the games.
"Mommy, is it time to open presents yet? I can't wait any longer!!!"
Christian rolled around in the tissue paper while his sister opened her gifts. He made a mess, but it kept him entertained so I couldn't complain.
Christian was having so much fun that the other kids decided to join in!
"Happy Birthday dear Ella, Happy Birthday to you!"
Cupcakes - yum!
I love this picture - he's such a boy!
Lil' Luke was kind enough to vacuum the back porch for me. He loves to vacuum just as much as his Daddy does!
While Ella loved each and every present that she received, the one gift that all the kids couldn't wait to play with was the Barbie swimming pool (Allison was happy to take credit for the most coveted gift!). After Court put it together, Ella and her friends brought the pool outside and filled it with water. They all crowded around it for a lengthy amount of time. And, the very next day after the party Ella was ready to let her Barbie's take a swim again! My baby had a great time at her party!
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