Mad Hatter Tea Party
Variations: Madeline, American Girl, Magic
Attic or other doll tea party.
Spring Bonnet Parade
Invitation:
Don't Be Late!
For a Very Important Date
"name" Birthday Party
If you're feeling quite MAD
We'll make you right GLAD
On the date that is given below.
Come in foolish Attire
For all to admire.
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Tea Party supplies
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Decorations:
Make from construction paper-hearts, spades and diamonds. Place these around
the room and on the backs of chairs. Make large playing cards on poster board to set
around the room. Toss hats everywhere. Fill them with flowers. Use dolls
hats for holding nuts, cookies, etc.
For a spring theme, decorate with flowers,
pussy willows, ribbons, bows, and paper streamers.
Cake:
Make a straw hat cake. Bake a cake in a round 11", 6 cup oven proof bowl.
Invert the cake, frost and decorate with sugar flowers.
Madeline's Hat cake: Bake a round cake layer and
one small soufflé or roundish oven proof dish dish cake. The little cake will sit on top of the large cake to
form a hat. Ice in yellow. Broad strap licorice for the black bow and flowers
and candles in the brim.
Pampered Chef makes a very
easy recipe for a tea pot cake from a cake mix and their round bowl. Decorate
it with red roses, cards, sugar bunnies (where are those Easter Peeps when
you need them??!!?) and maybe a croquet/pink flamingo. It will sit next to
the "Eat Me" tea cakes, right next to the small bottles of juice
labeled "Drink Me"
Food:
Serve Ginger-ale in champagne glasses, or tea cups. Make small cookies, cakes that
say eat me. Set out conversation hearts.
Goodie Bags:
They will take home a hat that they make themselves.
Hit the garage sales and purchase simple,
delicate all white china sets. At a local craft supply and
purchase paint pens (specifically for china). Placed each child's
name on the china and decorate it with roses. Write on the back
"birthday girls 3rd Birthday" and the date. They can
take this home with them to continue to have tea parties.
Additionally, you can purchase small
white resin chairs so the children will feel "grown up" at
their little table (instead of the dining room table looming over them).
These chairs are can then be detailed with a matching motif and their
names. Tie tulle and some simple pink curling ribbon to dress them
up.
During your garage sale romp, pick up
very elegant gloves, bright costume jewelry, scarves, boas, and a few
1.00 dresses. Decorate a cardboard box with floral wrapping paper
and tons or ribbons (anything flashy looks good to a young girl). Each
little girl will have a chance to pick pieces to wear from The Queens
Treasure Box. This can also serve as prizes for games.
When they are all dressed, and
after the hats they made have dried, take a Polaroid picture of them
with the birthday girl to take home with them.
Games and Activities:
Decorate Hats:
Need: straw hats that will fit the children. If
you prefer, make paper hats using firm paper plates and paper bowls.
Cut out center of plate and tape and glue bowl to top.
Let the children decorate them with "silk" flowers, tissue paper flowers,
ribbon feathers, bows, string, streamers, etc. Use a glue gun with
older kids or brads to attach.
Creative Hat Contest:
After they are done decorating. Hand out awards for their accomplishments.
Make sure you have a ribbon or prize for everyone. Make up categories - most
creative, most beautiful, silliest, etc.
Paint the Roses Red:
Need: butcher paper, one piece per team, with drawn roses with black marker. Red
crayons or markers.
Divide kids into teams. On go the first person in line picks up a red marker/crayon
and races to the rose sheet and fills in one rose. They then race back to the next
in line.
First team to color all their roses red wins.
Teacup Relay:
Need-plastic teacups and saucer. Water.
Have teams ready, first must fill the cup with water and race to designated area and back
again with out spilling.
Mad Spotter:
Need Colored stickers (different colors). Assign a point value to each color then
stick these all over outside or in.
To Play: Give each player a card or paper and let them find as many spots as
possible. Total the scores to see who wins.
Play Croquet
For a Doll or regular Tea (Madeline, AG, MAC, etc):
Decorations: Child size tables,
covered with lace table clothes. Good china (bread and butter plates). Tea
cups and China tea pot.
Food: Serve hot chocolate, if
preferred. Silver-plated tiered candy trays to serve pink and white animal cookies
and chocolate mint cookies. Take various small vases and place a few flowers in each
and place on the table or have one big centerpiece.
Other food ideas - scones, jam and mock
Devonshire cream! Peanut butter and jelly finger sandwiches or cut into shapes with
cookie cutters. Another easy, yummy
thing to do is dip maraschino cherries or strawberries into chocolate, let
dry on wax paper. (melt chocolate chips in a mug in microwave and stir-the kids like to do
the dipping)
CAKE: Serve pastel pink frosted
cupcakes with "pink and white snowballs" (a scoop of pink ice cream rolled in
coconut and served in a cupcake liner-made beforehand for no scooping during the party!!!
Favors : Buy a child's china tea set and wrap one tea cup
saucer and plate in tulle (nylon net) tie with a ribbon. You can fill the cup
with jelly beans or ?
Play the above games, but the roses could be another color.
Hats:
Make sure you purchase smaller hats to fit the dolls. Let the girls decorate these
also.
Sachets:
Need: Material or lace, potpourri, ribbon.
Let the girls make their own sachets to take home.
1. Pin the handle on the tea pot.
You would have to make a poster board sized teapot and handles.
2. Hot Teapot. A version
on hot Potato. Sew or use a real teapot and kids have to move it
around.
3. Musical teapot. Make
poster board sized teapots and place on ground. Kids walk to the
music and step on the teapot instead of sitting in a chair.
3. Teabag Hunt. Hide
teabags and let kids find them
4. Tea party Bingo. Make
up cards with pictures of tea party items.....tea cups, teapots, silver
sets, teabags, dolls. hats,
gloves, feather boas, etc
5. Dress up Relay contest
6. Feather race - A
team race. Need one feather per team and fans. The team must
work together to keep their feather in the air without touching it and
move it from the starting point to a basket. Madeline Ideas:
Pin the Tail on Genevieve
Draw a picture of the Eiffel Tower on poster board, with Genevieve large
in front. NO tail. Cover the picture with clear Contact
paper so it's slick. Draw and cut out some tails and put tape on
the ends to stick onto picture. Put numbers or children's' names
on each tail so they know which tail is
theirs.
Drop Madeline into the River
Paint clothespins (not the spring kind) black on the very bottom
(shoes), blue in the middle (coat), yellow on the top (hat), and a
smiley face. These are Madeline's'. Do about 12 of
them. Set two chairs, facing backward with a canister (like
a large-mouthed pitcher) on the floor at the back side of chair.
Each child kneels on the chair, facing the back of the chair and
drops Madeline's' into the pitcher (the river!).
Fish Madeline's Hat out of the River
Draw on yellow poster board, many yellow hats with black ribbons.
Clip a metal paper clip on each hat. Cut thin wooden dowels to
about 14" each in length. Tie 12" string at the end and
tape to secure. Glue a strong magnet (from craft store) at the end
of each string. Toss the hats around on the floor and let the kids
go fishing!
Another game with the hats:
Put a number on each of the above-mentioned hats. Put them
in a
large circle on the floor. You'll need as many hats as you have
guests. Write numbers on pieces of paper (same numbers as hats).
Put numbers in a basket. Each guest stands on a hat (you can also
cover the hats with clear Contact paper). Play music, the
children march around on the hats while the music plays. When the
music stops, each child stops on a hat. You pull a
number out of the basket. Whomever is on that number is out and
gets to go to a box to pick a small treat. Start the game again,
putting the number back into the basket in case someone is standing on
that hat next time. This is a nice way to play where no one loses,
they don't mind being "out" because
they get to pick a treat.
In Two Straight Lines
The guests line up in two straight lines and play Follow the Leader.
Make sure the invitation also
invites the
girls dolls.
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