Mad Hatter's Tea Party

Our Mad Hatter's Tea Party was a grand success.  Everyone brought some finger food, old traditional foods for tea, like toast, cream puffs, clotted cream, marmalade, cucumber sandwiches and lemon curd.  

 Here are the girls at the tea cart, everyone but Alice wore a minimal costume, tiny crowns for the queens, rabbit ears, a top hat or spinning top beanies .  

 The sun was bright and very hot ... but I had opted for my side lawn instead of my shady front yard, just so we could eat by the garden house, it seems so whimsical to me.

Love this picture of the white queen licking her pinkies.  She's adorable!!

 As a service group, we always start our luncheon days with a couple of hours of charity work.  This time, we made ornaments for the Alice in Wonderland Christmas tree we are doing for the Primary Children's hospital fund raiser, The Festival of Trees.

The 'drink me' bottles were fun to make, and we finished several.

We also got lots and lots of fan folded paper done, to frame the red tart tins with the paper clocks in the middle.  Next month will be another work day for our tree.  We really managed to get into the mood of Alice in Wonderland with our Mad Hatter's Tea.  This may be our favorite Christmas Tree so far!! (It will be our fourth)

I know, it just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser!!

Let the Mad Hatter's Tea Party Begin!

 All set up the night before for our  We Can (service organization) Mad Hatter Tea Party!!

 Above Chawton Cottage takes on the 'Mad Hatter's Tea Party banner ... (Reconfigured from my collection of alphabet pennants!!)

The mix matched chairs are gathered here ... along with the mix and match china ... waiting for the 'drink me' bottles of water, and some friendly crumpets and clotted cream ..

Its my first time to use my Union Jack pennants ... but I am sure it won't be my last!

When the We Can girls do the Christmas Tree for the children's hospital fun raiser in December, some of these chairs will reappear with bright new paint!!

I even made a new banner of Alice in Wonderland playing cards to top the archway into the garden  ... on Wednesday, check back to see the Alice in Wonderland theme ornaments that we will be making for our Mad Hatter's Tea Party tree for the Festival of Trees this year!  I can hardly wait!  

Fairy Garden Fun!

 I've been promising my granddaughter that we would make an outdoor fairy garden for over a month.  When I redid my miniature indoor garden last week, she was worried I had forgotten her.

She was so excited to come to Grandma's for an evening of gardening and a sleep over.  She is such a soul mate (After dinner we sat in my craft room and made sculpy fairies for the garden, and she said, "Grandma, someday I want a craft room just like this!)

Using an old fountain bowl on top of the stump of the catalpa we chopped down last fall seem like the perfect camouflage.

Eva loved how the garden turned  out, and said, "Grandma, if this was a contest I think we would win, don't you?"  Then when I posted it to Instagram, and showed her others that came up under the hash tag #fairygarden, she was disappointed that she found one she like even better than ours!

 I think she really loved the gardening gloves and water can I got for her for the occasion, and is so excited to get to take them home! ("I think I will make a fairy garden at my house, Grandma!")

What a super fun project .... I love it when it works our just like you planned it, don't you?