I'm Back! And News On A Unicef Fundraising Campaign

Well hello there!
I've been a long time as I had an operation on my knee late last summer and have been taking time to recover from that and attend physiotherapy. I'm pleased to say that it finally seems to be improving although I still have to keep up with the exercises.

Anyway, onto fun and better things now. Together with padawan #2 who has started his own blog and Facebook page for his special dinosaur friend Niguel, I have decided to do some fundraising for Unicef this year.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice In Wonderland. So we thought it would great to celebrate this by hosting a charity tea party and I'd get to use my lovely Wonderland party printables and generally have lots of fun and raise money for a very good cause at the same time.
Theo and I then thought it would be great if we could get our friends, family, blog readers and Facebook fans involved too. That way we could raise even more money for Unicef to help children all over the world who are affected by war, disease, poverty and social circumstances. So if you would like to join in and help us raise some money by raising a cup of tea then you can download an information pack here or on the website. This pack has invitations, a poster, hints and tips and 2 printable games to use at your tea party. It also includes details of where to donate the money you raise.

We have set up a fundraising page with Unicef so you can donate your money here and every penny will go to helping children (as it's Unicef's own fundraising page, no commission is taken off).
I am also going to donate 10% of all sales of my Wonderland Tea Party printables through the website.
Theo and Niguel have some special plans of their own which I will be helping him with over the coming weeks. I'll keep you posted on that as things develop.

For any of you in the UK, we also have a Red Noses party set which you can use for any Comic Relief events you might be involved in or just to have fun at home and make a night of it while watching on the telly. Comic Relief is on Friday 13th March this year (so not long now). The set is £3 and includes invitations, bunting, cupcake wrappers, a bottle wrap, a popcorn box, a food tray and more. I will donate all proceeds from the sale of this set to Comic Relief.

Well, that's all for now folks! We'd love to hear from you if you join in with our Wonderland fundraising or Red Nose Day and see photos of your parties.
Take care
Suz and the Party Padawans

Alice In Wonderland Tea Party

Hello! It's me! Did you wonder where I'd gone? I've been spending some time with the family as the kids have been off school for the summer holidays for just over a week now and my eldest daughter has come home to stay for awhile (or maybe longer!).
The Alice In Wonderland party was a great success and we had gorgeous weather! I think it was the hottest day of the year so far!

Above, you can see a small coffee table with an old tea set I found in a charity shop and my 3 tired fruit basket which had little favours of tea bags and candy pouches for guests to enjoy. 

The children at the party really enjoy the mini pick and mix bar. The sweets were mostly from a pound shop or on special offer from the supermarkets so weren't too expensive. At the back there are two fish bowl vases with lollipops and marshmallows and a old glass sweet stand from the charity shop. I also used popcorn treat boxes and food trays from my Wonderland range. Small candy bags and tongs were bought from Amazon.

Delicious red cake pops were also a huge hit with the little ones. You can also see two large tin buckets which we used for popcorn and crisps. 

I'm not much of a flower arranger but I'm really pleased with the arrangements I did using teapots and these tea cup garden decorations. Once again, I kept prices down by buying these from a pound shop and I simply repainted them to match the colour scheme. 

Some bunting from the Wonderland range.

This juice dispenser was a great find at John Lewis. The kids really liked the fact they could get their own drink without having to have an adult open up tight lids on bottles.

Cute mini tea set in a spotty suitcase! Perfect for decorating this party.

This is a selection canvases my daughter painted. They should have hanging around the marquee but it was quite windy and the sides were blowing in a lot so we decided it was safer if they went on the ground. 

My friend made these cool signs which we nailed to a tree! 

Theo as the Doormouse posing in my photobooth frame! Nienna and Lorien added some red hearts for the occasion.

And that's me!! But anyway.... quickly moving on something far prettier...

Here's Nienna as the White Queen!

And finally, napkins with the napkin rings from The Wonderland collection.

So there you have it... my Wonderland Tea Party. I hope it has helped to inspire you with some ideas which are pretty easy to pull off even on a budget.

Take care 

Suz x

Tutorial - Mini Cupcake Stand

Good Morning to you all. Well. it's been awhile since I posted as I've been busy with a craft fair and getting organised for Theo's birthday party (it's his birthday today - can't believe my baby is 10!!). I had to have some enforced time off after getting a steroid injection in my knee last week too! But I'm back now and have a lovely tutorial to make a mini cupcake stand using one of my printables. These are a really cute way to display some cupcakes or perhaps you could just make one and have the special birthday girl/boy's cupcake on it.

Firstly, download your free cupcake stand printable here, and print out onto card.

Cut out around the outline of the stand. Leave the white ovals in the middle. Score along the lines. Score down through the white ovals too as you will need to fold these bits.

Turn over and apply glue to all areas except the tabs at the top. Now you need to concertina fold the stand together to form a cross shape. The white ovals should be together.

You can now cut out the white ovals.

Fold down the tabs at the top and apply glue to each. Place scalloped circle on the top.

And there you go, a lovely mini cake stand. I hope you have fun with it.
Hugs
Suz x

Alice In Wonderland Free Printable!

We hello to you all. I hope you are all safe and well.
Today I have a free download for you and a short tutorial on how to make these cute triangular pouches (I'm not sure if they have a proper name!).

So you can get your download by clicking on the picture below and saving it to your computer or click here to get a PDF (remember you'll need Adobe Reader to view PDF files).

And now, how to make them. They are a little tricky at first but once you've done one you'll quickly get the hang of it.
So, to create an aged vintage look, I first coloured my paper with teabags! I'm sure you've all tried this before even if it was when you were at school. But for those who haven't, simply use a wet teabag to "paint" your paper and stain it. Allow to dry and then press under some heavy books to flatten out. You could also try ironing it! It needs to be flat to go through your printer but I do suggest you try a sheet first as printers can be temperamental sometimes ;-) You can also print onto cream coloured paper or simply keep the nice crisp white look - they all look nice.
Print the design on to A4 paper and then cut out. Next, use some double sided sticky tape and apply to the back leaving a 1cm gap on the opposite side to the tab. This will make sense once to start to stick together!

 Before gluing the tab, roll the paper into a cylinder (this will make it easier to glue together).
Apply glue to the tab down the edge (a glue stick is best here). and then stick both ends together to form a cylinder.

If you look carefully, you'll see some small marker lines at the top and bottom of the pouch. Pinch the cylinder together at the bottom using these marker lines as a guide as shown below. Remove the backing from the tape and seal together.

Half fill the pouch with sweets and then repeat the step above with the top edge of the pouch. You should have something like this below. You may wish to trim along the top and bottom edges to neaten up. 

I do hope you enjoy this free download and have fun making them. Like I say they are a bit tricky and I'm sure how well I've explained the process but hopefully the pictures will help! To open, I just tear along the top.

Take care
Hugs, Suz x

Most Everyone's Mad Here!!

Well, I haven't gone completely mad (yet!) but myself and all 3 of the kids have gone a little Alice In Wonderland mad as we are planning a Wonderland Tea Party at the beginning of July. The party is an opportunity to get together with friends, who pretty much all have children so having a theme makes things more interesting. Last year we had a Great British Garden Party!! I'm hosting the party jointly with my best friend who will probably be donating her garden for the party and I of course am taking care of anything printable and lots of other ideas.

There are so many ideas out there for this theme and I'm not surprised as it's really such a great theme and can be done lavishly or simply, in a vintage style, kids style or gothic for teenagers or halloween.

At the moment I'm working on some of the original illustrations by John Tenniel. These will then be incorporated into the printables I'll design. I'm working towards a child friendly vintage style for my party.

We've been making lists of things we can do to carry our theme. Here are a few we've come up with:
Tags saying "drink me" to be tied to bottles and the mini jars I've been collecting
Cakes and cake pops with "eat me" iced onto them
Lots of old vintage style teacups, plates and teapots which we'll gather from charity shops
Some photo props to go with my new photo booth frame (Blog on how to make this will follow in the next week or so)
Playing cards to be used as easy and cheap decorations
A paper mache door (obviously quite small) and key. The kids would like me to make huge paper mache tables and chairs too but I don't think that will happen!
I think the first two ideas on the list are must haves for any Alice party. Add in a few playing cards and you could have a really easy themed party (just add tea!! Whaich is always a must in my book!!).
My eldest daughter has been painting some Alice In Wonderland canvases which we'll use to decorate the marquee.
We are also asking that guests join in with the theme and dress up as a character from Alice in Wonderland. I think a few husbands are already been measured for their Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee costumes!!

As this isn't a birthday (it will most definitely be an un-birthday party!!) and we have invited lots of people we won't be doing any favours for each guest to take away (although the party planner in me will probably have to do something, so I'm thinking teabags wrapped in special Alice wrappers might be good!). I will be making some special favour printables for the set though and also include anything else I think will be useful for different kinds of parties.

So for now I bid you all adieu and I'll get back to work on these pictures. Watch out for more posts on this party in the coming months as the preparations take shape as well as posts on my son's jungle birthday party and a "How to" guide on making a large frame for awesome photos.
If you would like something designed just for you and your party then please just get in touch to discuss your ideas.
Take Care
Suz and the kidywinks xx