Family Raffi Halloween Costumes and A Wonderland Birthday Party

 Hello Frieds!

Since early October my craft room (the dining room) has been going into full overdrive! I knew that starting early would be key. One night, thinking about how much our little one loves the song "Baby Beluga", I was inspired to create a giant cardboard guitar for my husband Will to dress up as the songs originator and singer- the one and only Raffi.

Unfortunately the internet was out for a bit when I started it and I neglected to google "guitar shape"

 - OH WELL.

I quickly ordered from Ebay a similar Hawaiian shirt to the one from the above Raffi concert.

I was so excited about this idea! Also I instructed Will to start growing his beard. 

Next I had to create Luella's Baby Beluga costume.

There was a very nice handmade one on Etsy that I took as inspiration. It looked like it was constructed from white polar fleece. I used some of her clothes as templates for the pattern. I knew that the hood would be especially tricky.

This was my first muslin. There was a second! Looking back the flippers could have been shorter, they were a bit dangley.

We did't get the best photos of the final costumes all together, but here you can see the whale costume the best.   

My costume was pretty simple as I was Baa Baa Black Sheep (just a black shirt and pants with a sheep headband). So fun! Luella still falls asleep so well and smiles when she hears the Baby Beluga song!

Immediately after the Halloween costumes were made I dove right into Luella's first birthday party plans.

My idea was to give her a fun Alice in Onderland party! Once I decided on the theme I realized that I already had many elements that would work for the party, and it wouldn't be too expensive to put together.  I planned on having it be a "Mad" afternoon tea, so my teapot collection would come in handy.

I already had in my stash some beautiful and so inspiring Rifle Paper Co Alice fabric. I had made a dress out of it for an event in NYC  a few years ago when we took pics at the Alice Statue in Central Park.

Before I had made this dress there was an unfortunate first try dress out of a pink Rifle Paper Co. Alice fabric, which was a massive fail. I still had the failed dress, and fully intended to cut up every scrap of it to use for the party.

Also I had a beautiful vintage Alice in Wonderland book that was given to me as a small child.

It was so special to me and made a great prop!

The first thing I did was gather fabrics, I found some cute disty prints in my stash that went well with the pink Alice fabric. I found a great tutorial for a Mad Hatters hat from cardboard on Pinterest.

Here is the image!

I am addicted to making stuff from cardboard, it feels like making something from literally trash!

After the hat I decided to make Luella's Alice dress.

I used a big four patten, Simplicity 2461. It had a peter pan collar and a puff sleeve, but the bodice ended up being quite high on the body, so I lowered it- but probably not enough. I pretty much made up the apron part to look more like Alice.

Looking back I wish that I had added more rouching to the waistline as well. A fuller skirt would have been cute!

Still I was pretty happy with the final dress, I used an eyelet trim from JoAnne, where I got the blue and white cotton fabric as well. 

My new excitement about making cardboard props had me wanting to make a huge cardboard tree for the Cheshire Cat to be looking on over the table with the Mad Tea Party. After thinking about it for a bit. I decided to just go for it and paint a full on tree mural on the wall. Ha Ha I may have been watching too much Rachel Maksy on youtube lately, but hey you can always paint over it!

This was the inspiration pic that I found that I loved and decided to paint it as similar to this as I could.

I didn't get any progress pics of the mural, but this is the final look. I ordered a Cheshire Cat plush and attached him to the wall. I also added faux red roses. I felt like the corner with the tree needed a little something so I made yet another cardboard prop, the wonky sign posts.

I did need some type of birthday sign, so i found this lovely wooden custom Onederland sign on Etsy.

I had so much fun with the details! I crafted a cake topper form a clothespin doll complete with Luella's great grandfather's pocket watch.

I also made some fabric frames for the wall next to the mural which I put some print outs of vintage Alice illustrations.

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It was so much fun crafting this Alice in Wonderland Mad Tea Party! Just remember mon amis, we are all mad here!