When my daughter was nearly two, she was VERY MUCH into the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland.  She also loved tea parties and hats.  (See where I’m going with this?)

Since my husband was deployed, I decided to make a “Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” for my daughter’s second birthday, and have a fun time of it with some friends. Keep in mind, deployment can make you a little cuckoo.  I threw myself into it, but I didn’t need any additional stress, so I planned it WELL in advance, and although it seems like a ton of work, by the time party day came around, I just sort of got everything out & laid it nicely around the room.  Easy peasy.

So I had this funny sketch I had done of my daughter intensely focused on her “tea” that was perfect for the invitations.

The idea was that kids could show up in hats & have some fun.  My friends surprised me, and most had not only their kids in hats but themselves as well!  One thing I’ve learned from homemade kid’s parties is to have something for kids to DO right off the bat, so there’s no awkward waiting-around-for-everyone phase (kids have been known to have short attention spans). So I got some inexpensive foam visors from the craft store, a few plain stickers, lots of foam stickers, and let the kids have at it.  We didn’t even have chairs–I just laid tablecloths on the floor (which fit the “tea party” theme anyway) and let the kids play with the stickers & hats while the mamas talked.

I got plain ol’ cookies (I think they were pre-made grocery store ones), and decorated them with hearts and card symbols with a simple tube of icing.

I had little paper signs that said “eat me, ” “drink me,” “we’re all a little mad around here,” and “don’t step on the mome raths.”

I had splurged a little on a local bakery’s mini-cupcakes, and put store-bought little sugar roses (from the cake decorating section of stores) in them.

My neighbor, a crafty friend, had helped me sew some little bloomers and an apron for my daughter, to pull of a sort of “Alice” look.

The fancy footwork came with the cake.  I had done a full-fondant cake for our daughter’s first birthday (more for me, just to see if I COULD), and didn’t really feel like taking that route again.  But I did have my mom’s awesome buttercream recipe, and a ton of food coloring.  I even made the cake batter rainbow swirl, as I had seen all over online.  Fondant eyes, teeth & nose, 2-layer cake, and boom–the Cheshire Cat.  (I even accidentally jacked up the top layer, and calmly just cut it out and drew his ears on the bottom.)

As one of the fun parts of the party, I had a few mini felt top hats for anyone who didn’t come with a hat and didn’t want to feel left out.  (Also, they decorated the place nicely.)  When I was researching some party ideas early on, I had seen an awesome tutorial online that was super easy and fun to do, and basically used felt and random embellishments.

I hot-glued everything together, and mostly used plain felt sturdied with cardboard (although the pre-made sturdy felt works best).  I had seen some hot-glued to headbands before, but I wanted something a little sturdier, so I decided to hot glue the top side of hair clips to the underside of the hats, and it worked REALLY well.  It allowed the hat to stay on through the whole party.

They were so fun to decorate and embellish with pennies, feathers, buttons, and whatever else I had lying around, and I even invited some guests to take them home as party favors.

All in all, a “fancy” birthday party that seems like a lot of work, but when done in little steps well in advance, wasn’t so bad at all.  I had a great time with friends, the kids had fun, and the best part is I wasn’t stressed at all!  Seems silly for a party she’ll never remember, but as I said, during a deployment, sometimes your friends are all you have to help you make things better.  I was grateful for everyone that showed up, and I’m pretty sure everyone had fun!

The felt hats were especially fun.  Might be a cool kid’s project to make a couple of hats up in advance, and let the kid decorate them…