Snapshots: The Ehresmanns Do Alice in Wonderland

I'm going to tell you a little secret.

The truth is either going to make you think I'm a little nuts or brilliant.

[If you already think I'm nuts, no worries! This truth can't make it any worse. I think.]

My secret is this:

I have been cooking up this project for OVER. ONE. YEAR.

Not because it took that long to put together, but because Halloween only comes once a year.

[So inconsiderate.]

So here's the thing. I got this snippet of an idea and it grew, eventually becoming life size. Largely due to Pinterest. Uh huh. Pinterest.

So large in fact, that I'm breaking this into multiple posts.

[See what I did there? Keeping you coming back for more baby!]

So without further delay,

Part One! The Ehresmanns Do Alice in Wonderland

The Players:
Karl Ehresmann as the Mad Hatter
Crystal Ehresmann as the Queen of Hearts
Willa Ehresmann as Alice
Marek Ehresmann as the White Rabbit

I had SO much fun putting this together! Here's the deets:

The Mad Hatter costume is inspired largely by Johnny Depp's Hatter. Shirt, vest, pants are all upcycled second hand store finds. So is the jacket with some changes. I painted it up to try to make it more brocade-ish and added lace detail to the sleeves and handkerchief pocket. Silk scarves, a few ribbons and a colorful spool of thread sash complete the look. Well almost. Hatter needs a hat, yo! I found a few instructions online and got after it. In the end the hat turned out pretty amazing considering it began as a carboard box! It's worth noting painting his nails black was all Karl's idea, don't you let him tell you any different, lol!

For the Queen of Hearts costume I veered off the Tim Burton path a bit. I actually began with a fascinator; aka an English 'hat'. I envisioned my Queen a little more like the Red Queen from Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. I started with my strapless poofy black bridesmaids dress as a base. Then I sewed up a gold and red skirt and gold shoulder shrug. I added black elbow length gloves I already had and went with a dark eye, heart shaped lips and a heart shaped mole on my cheek. The finishing touch was a heavy heart shaped pendant.

For Alice I wanted to go old-school: blue dress, white apron and black shoes. The only thing we had already were the shoes! I purchased a pattern and fabric in early August and left it until the week before pictures, yikes! As soon as I opened the pattern I thought I had really gotten into something beyond my capability, as my only previous experience with using a pattern was an A line skirt from my 4-H days. Anyway after one major pattern layout hurdle it all came together within a couple of days. The only other addition were striped socks. The socks have cute hearts on the knees which you don't see because of the length of the dress. At least I know they're there. :)

Our White Rabbit was the easiest of the four costumes. I found the blue jacket and nearly white pants second hand. He already had a white shirt. The ears were a closeout after Easter. I did sew the bowtie from fabric leftover from my skirt and picked up the cutest 'I'm Late!' pocket watch from Hobby Lobby. It's adorable to hear him say pocket watch, by the way! And how cute are his nose and whiskers?

So there you go, Part One! Part Two coming tomorrow!

What do you think? Nuts or Genius?!

ce