Month: December 2009

Have I mentioned that both of my girls were born in December? Makes for a busy month. My younger daughter had her party at a bouncy place, so it was low-maintenance. But my older daughter (yes, the one who dressed as Violet Beauregarde for Halloween) wanted a Willy Wonka party. And my apologies to the parents of the children who attended, but we had a full-on Wonka candy party. It was a mess!

We loved the original Gene Wilder movie and I recently finished reading the Roald Dahl book with the kids. Love that book. Overwhelmed by first-graders, I didn’t get many photos of the party yesterday, but took some this morning. My older daughter dressed in her Violet costume and I made a t-shirt into a Veruca Salt dress for my five-year-old (this character is so appropriate for her these days). My husband even rented a Wonka hat and jacket. But no, I did not dress like an Oompa Loompa. So first, we made Wonka bar invitations by wrapping a candy bar with a golden ticket printed on the reverse of the label (pictured above).

We made some recycled decorations like the mushrooms pictured above. These were made with the same technique I used making the Halloween bowls and I cut a fabric bolt for the stems. Then my daughter painted them. We also used cardboard fabric tubes for giant candy cane sticks by covering them in butcher paper and wrapping them with red velvet ribbon.

Then I asked a local mom to make this super awesome cake shaped like a Wonka bar. If you live in Atlanta, you can contact Christi of Frosted and Sprinkled to make a cake for your event. It tasted as good as it looked. The tablecloth was a patchwork of pinwheels made from the polka dots in Amy Butler’s Love collection.

The kids played Pin the Hat on the Wonka with the sweet picture that my daughter drew. Note the smear of chocolate on the poster board since I took this photo after the party. They also made candy canes from pipe cleaners and guessed how many jelly beans were in a jar.

The goodie bags were filled with cocoa mix for the kids to take home and a miniature swirl lollipop tied to the top.

I used gerbera daisies mixed with candy for the flower arrangements.

My daughters both painted lollipops for decoration. We used foam core board for these, but should have used recycled cardboard since we have so much of it around the house these days.

We hung paper lanterns and tissue paper flowers from the ceiling, served kettle corn, chocolate dipped fruit and carbonated water with twisty straws for “fizzy lifting drinks”. I found this cool French poster for the movie that we hung on the front door and I plan to have framed for her room. Yes, I went overboard on this party. Hope no kids vomited on the car ride home.