Wonderland Tutorials: Paper Crafts

This post will be two tutorials in one. Because that’s how much I love you.

White Rabbits

To have a good Mad Tea Party, you have to get into Wonderland, right?

And how do you get into Wonderland?

You follow a white rabbit. Of course.

Last year when we threw a Mad Tea for my sister’s graduation party we held it at a picnic area behind our church, out of sight of the parking lot, so I made white rabbits to lead the guests across the field to show everyone where to go. Making them couldn’t be simpler:

You will need white cardstock, a printer, scissors, glue, and skewers like these–look for them in the grilling section or with the kitchen utensils at your grocery store.

Download a rabbit silhouette. I used these–click on each image to download the full size!

Download one or both of the silhouettes, size them to fit on a single sheet of paper, then print them out on heavy white cardstock. Print two sheets for each rabbit that you want to make. Then just cut out your rabbits, sandwich a skewer in between the two sides, and glue.

Then stick your white rabbits in the grass leading to your tea party, and wait for the guests to arrive!

Chessboard Sandwich Skewers

One of my favorite touches at my Mad Tea Party was the chessboard of tea sandwiches–it looks awesome, and it was so simple to do!

I used ordinary white bread and a dark rye bread–you can use any bread as long as you have two colors!  I cut each piece into quarters–in retrospect I wish that I’d also trimmed off the crusts, but I was in a hurry.

You’ll also need a large, square tray–if you want to make a full chessboard like mine you’ll need a tray large enough to hold an 8 by 8 square. We didn’t have a square tray large enough and I was just going to set my sandwiches out on a smaller tray that was 5 by 5 sandwiches, and put my extra chesspeople on the side like cocktail skewers. Then my dad went into his magic workshop (the garage) and returned with a beautiful custom tray, just for me, cut to just the right size. Is he the best, or is he the best? I think both are correct.

But the important thing for this project is, of course, the chesspeople skewers. You’ll need toothpicks, white cardstock, glue or double-sided tape (I used glue, but tape might be less messy!), a printer, and this downloadable papercraft chess set, created by T. John Peacock, inspired by the classic Tenniel illustrations:

click on the image to go to the download

Print out the chess set on white cardstock, then cut out each piece and fold it over the end of a toothpick, gluing (or taping) it in place.

Now you’re ready to play with your food!

Wonderland Tutorials: Playing Card Garland

Remember how I was going to write tutorials for some of the things I did for my Mad Tea Party?

Remember how I did…one?

*cough*

Well, I have more!

I knew that I’d get around to them eventually.

This will be a tutorial for the playing card garland that I made. To make your own, you will need:

-Playing cards (this is a great use for that incomplete deck of cards that we all have in the bottom of the games cupboard! You know, the deck with only 51 cards?)

-‘Invisible’ nylon thread

-a sewing machine

It’s a pretty straightforward project–thread your sewing machine with the invisible thread, pulling out a long tail of thread before you start sewing (this is so that you’ll have something to hang your garland from!).

Pop a playing card into the machine, sewing down the middle….or, y’know. Mostly down the middle.

As you near the end of the first card, line up a second card with the bottom edge of the first, and just keep sewing!

When you get to the end of the second card, line up a third card, and keep sewing. Repeat until your garland is as long as you want, or until you run out of cards!

Wonderland Tutorials: Queen of Hearts PB&(s)J

I was going to start posting my Wonderland party tutorials tomorrow, but decided at the last minute that I wanted to put this one up today (you’ll find out why at the bottom of the post).  It’s really a very simple project that hardly merits a tutorial (she said self-deprecatingly)–in fact it’s so simple that I will use hardly any words at all–but I’m a visual learner and I like to see how things are put together, so there you go.

Besides, I wanted a sandwich.

You will need: Bread (I used round flat bread because there was no regular bread in the house), peanut butter, strawberry jam, and two heart-shaped cookie cutters, one small enough to fit inside the other.

…and there you have it. A peanut butter & (strawberry) jelly sandwich fit for the Queen of Hearts.

Of course, the same concept works very well with other cut out shapes, too, like this:

Happy Canada Day!