A Mad Hatters Tea Party

So… down the rabbit hole we went… To a place, like no place on Earth, a land full of wonder, mystery and danger! Some say to survive it you need to be as mad as a hatter!  We emerged in a World that was topsy turvy, drank whiskey (or champagne rather) from tea cups, ate cake that was so colourful it glowed from the inside and partied all night in a World of Wonderland!  And yes we may be mad, bonkers, and completely off our heads, but let me tell you a secret… all the best people are!

So to celebrate the tremendous event of turning 30, (I never thought I’d reach it ha!) I decided to have a party.  It wasn’t a decision I took lightly, it took lots of thinking about before actually doing anything about it.  It all started back last year some time, in 2011 I went to see Take That with my lovely friend Corin and what an amazing show they put on!  They did the song ‘Shine’ which ended up as a mad hatters tea party type thing on the centre stage culminating with Mark Owen riding a giant caterpillar into the stage with talking clocks, white rabbits and all sorts of merriments.  At the time I thought nothing of it, but one rainy afternoon watching the DVD with my step daughter, thinking about my mums surprise 50^th birthday party that we were organising for her, a light bulb pinged in my mind and the idea for a Mad Hatters Tea Party was borne! 

I of course consulted ebay before I thought of anything further (love a spot of shopping!) and spoke to my Mum about my crazy ideas.  The party in itself was an absolute god send with the surprise party for my Mum going on, as I was actually able to talk to my Mum about the party I was organising and not feel like I was keeping anything from her.  In actual fact, when the day of Mum’s surprise party finally came round, she even questioned me as to where all the teacups and pots were at her party and if I was even having a party!

The main theme for the party was of course going to be Alice in Wonderland, topsy turvy and crazy as you like; which is then what got me started thinking about cake.  Do I really want to do a buffet and feed everyone? We had a hog roast for mums party which was marvellous, but did I want to go down that route?  No, I wanted a cake and I wanted a cheese cake, no ordinary cheese cake, but a 5 tier wedding style cake made out of different cheeses!  Yes… welcome to my imagination! 

(The cheese came from Lyburn Farm... http://www.lyburnfarm.co.uk/ check them out for locally produced cheeses.  The chutneys came from https://en-gb.facebook.com/thriftcottage check them out too! Fabulous service from both)

Sat talking one night at Wine O’Clock and Kat (my friend for many moons) was just as excited about the party as I was and so we made the decision for it to be a joint party and share all the fun!  Or hard work, however you look at it anyways!  My birthday is 13th, Kat's birthday is 25th so we picked a date in the middle for a Very Merry Unbirthday indeed!

Now the hard work really started, we needed props and lots of them, we needed cheese and lots of it, we needed sweets and lots of them.  I set about shopping for tea cups/saucers/plates/teapots with the help of Lauren and Mr B.  We visited charity shops far and wide in the Hampshire and West Sussex area and turned my lounge into a junk shop!  I did borrow some tea pots from Lauren’s mum, so that gave us a good start too and a start to filling up my mums spare room as well. 

Crockery wasn’t the only thing I purchased, we also managed to gain a large collection of posters, flamingos, playing cards, giant cards, party signs all manner of things as I'm sure you can probably guess!  Kat and I also set about making things, flowers for the tables, hedgehogs for the flamingos, miniature crochet sets, roses half painted red, I love a trip to Hobby craft me!

So between Kat and I, we made hundreds of flowers, lots of table props, emailed lots of pictures to each other, got given some wonderful donations and made some cracking finds!  I was even given two large frames from a friend of mine, which I dutifully painted, cut, stick, pasted and coloured in, to make feature stands.

On to costumes, I knew right from the start I wanted to be the Queen of Hearts and Barney wants to be the Mad hatter, so of course I set about ebay again looking for some bargains.  My family, work colleagues, friends and anyone else who would listen heard a great deal about the costumes, and well the party come to think of it!

So the big day dawned, I for one was glad of everything to be moved from my lounge for a start, even if it wasn’t for very long!  My lovely friend Penfold came and helped us do some loading and unloading after Mr B most gracefully did his back in.  We spent hours washing, drying and packing (crockery), loading and unloading (boxes), prettying the hall up and generally knackering ourselves out!  We managed to only break two tea cups in all of this process, which by my thinking is bluddy amazing! 

Everyone made a wonderful effort, most people came in the most wonderful Alice in Wonderland costumes or mad hats and we had a lovely party.  Barney and my cousin Trudi organised the most amazing cake (Trudi made it) which just went perfectly with the theme and my crazy ideas. 

My Mum helped out so much, before the party, during the day setting up, doing all our make up, picking up the cheese, doling out welcome drinks in tea cups and helping me to clear away as the night wore on.  My Mum was amazing and I couldn't have done any of it without her, so thank you Mum xx

We had help from a few other people towards the end of the night, the hall was slowly packed up into Barney’s van and it all looked like it had never happened!

Wonderland was a lovely place to visit, I hope those of you who came had fun and I’d love to go back there soon xx

TTFN Sammy xx

P.S.... There are loads of pics on facebook, I couldn't add them all here, plus I wasn't sure if everyone wanted to be splurged across something that isn't facebook! xx