A Magical Birthday, an Adventure in Wonderland
Mad Hatter Hats
The party kicked off inside the DIY Studio. First the girls each drank a “drink me” bottled juice so they could fit inside the studio. Then the girls got to work making mini top hats. They learned how to use a glue gun and created the most fun hats I’ve ever seen! Using ribbons, feathers, small playing cards and flowers each girl’s hat looked as unique as each of their personalities.
Decorations
The studio was decorated with white parasols hanging from the ceiling along with a cheerful butterfly. Little Missy and I also made the Cheshire cat out of purple butcher paper (thinking giant paper medallion) and hung it from the ceiling.
After the craft was done (and many pictures were taken) the girls headed into the dining room for tea.
My goodness, even the food was magical. It took many days to get ready for the Mad Hatter Birthday Party, but it was well worth the effort! We had petits fours, ganache coated brownies, a veggie tray, deviled eggs, grapes, fruit, cucumber sandwiches, pb&j and served tea as well.
Petits Fours
I attempted to make petits fours from scratch. The cake turned out lovely–Lady Cake, a recipe from Joy of Cooking. The cake was light and flavorful. I baked the cake in cookie sheets and then put them in the freezer for easier cutting. When I was ready to cut the cake, I took it out of the freezer and let it set for 5 mins. Then I removed the yellow coating of the cake by rubbing my hands over the surface. Then I cut the cake into small cubes added jam.
The HARD part was making my own fondant from scratch and then thinning it down into icing. Leave it to the french to create this difficult process for such a simple little bite of sinful goodness. It too a long time to make the fondant (the process is much like making taffy and gets very messy) and then I was sad it made such a small amount. So next time I would have made more. With not much time left I improvised and made a simple fondant icing with confectionery sugar. It didn’t taste as creamy, however I don’t think the eight year old girls cared one bit. They gobbled up their petits fours happily.
“Eat ME” Brownies
I used my favorite brownie recipe and simply added ganache to the top of each brownie. While the brownies were cooking I melted white chocolate and added it to a zip lock bag with a little hole cut at one edge. On wax paper I wrote out “Eat Me” text and let it cool. When the text was cooled completely, I added it to the top of the ganache. I did have a few “eat me”s break, however no one noticed since they can simply be placed next to each other on the brownie hiding any broken pieces.
Decorations
I used the doily banner to the window in the dining room. I decorated the china hutch with terrariums with toadstools inside as well as some small rabbits. I also set out some tea cups that a friend collected for me. Using crepe paper streamers I folded the streamer back and forth (like paper dolls) and then cut out a crescent shape to create a scalloped shape streamer to add to the shelves of the china hutch. For the table I added a white coverlet (I love to use bedding for this purpose). I used my everyday dishes (I don’t have china) for the base of each place setting. Then I added a colorful plate on top and then added the party favor/placecard tea cup on top of that.
It was a magical day full of whimsy, giggling girls and lots of love. Happy Birthday Little Missy!