In this first Alice in Wonderland related post I’m going to share how to make a White Rabbit costume, like the one my son is wearing in the picture here:
I actually made this costume before we even decided to do the party, as his school were doing an Alice in Wonderland theme for World Book Day (at least I think that was it - there seem to be several official Book Days or Book Weeks now). It was very easy to put together, which is just as well as I only had 5 days notice that it was needed.
It was around Easter time so rabbit ears were plentiful. The ones I got were from a local party supply store and cost a couple of pounds. I’ve also seen them I pound shops, usually along with items aimed at Hen parties. The bunny ears I bought are fluffy and a little girly, but fortunately my son is too young to worry about this! I added a waistcoat, which butched up the outfit a bit. He had outgrown the waistcoat he wore to a wedding a year or so ago, but fortunately I had a little halter neck waistcoat sitting in my fabric box which I had kept for the pretty embroidered material. I shortened the neck for a better fit, and it now looks great him on him despite the fact it is a little baggy and loose on the back.
Most of the time I spent making the White Rabbit costume was on the little pocket watch. I’m sure you can probably buy something suitable at a reasonable price, but I didn’t have the time to look and didn’t want to spend more than I had to. So I made one out of junk I had already. To start with, I superglued two Pringles lids together - with the top sides facing out - with a string of gold chain protruding from between the lids. To make sure this wasn’t going to fall apart I then added small tabs of tape all around the edge. Next I cut out two circles of gold cards and glued them to either side of the watch. On one side I created a watch face out of a smaller circle made from white card. I did consider making the watch more realistic by attaching little cardboard hands to the white card circle with a paper fastener, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort when the watch may not last a day of rough playground games. So I drew the watch face on with permanent marker instead. The last thing I had to do was sew the other end of the gold chain to the inside of the waistcoat.
So that is son no.1’s costume ready for the Alice in Wonderland party. My partner and I will be wearing shop bought King and Queen of Hearts fancy dress outfits. As much as I’d like to have a go at making an exact replica of the Disney Queen of Heart’s dress I don’t have the time to sew it all by hand (I have no sewing machine!). Looking around online, more industrious people have managed to make some really amazing homemade Queen of Hearts costumes entirely from scratch.
My next job is making my littlest boy an Alice in Wonderland dormouse costume!
