Last Saturday, we hosted a big soiree in honor of Rosemary’s upcoming seventh birthday. During the summer she had decided that she wanted a Narnia party. I kept trying to dissuade her from Narnia and talk her into something that seemed a little bit more doable, but she was persistent in her request for Narnia. Finally, after some Pinterest searching and seeing other people that pulled off that theme, I agreed.
I knew that if we did Narnia, there was a good chance that few of her friends would know the story, so we’d need to also build in telling the story as part of the party. We narrowed the story down to only the portion found in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and planned the decorations and games to tie in with that book. It was a lot of fun to put together and, while Jonathan thinks I went a bit overboard, I think it ended up being a lot of fun for Rosemary and hopefully for the kids that came, too. It was also really cheap. We did everything for less that $100. And pretty much all of the decorations can be reused. In fact, I think with the amount of snowflakes I now own, next December my house will be a veritable winter wonderland for Christmas.
So, since so much went into making this happen, I wanted to break this into two posts: one for the prep work and one for the actual party. Almost all of the ideas came from searching Pinterest for “Narnia Party” and “Snowflake Party.” We did do the editing of the story ourselves though and wove it into the activities.
Also, I couldn’t have pulled this off without Jonathan, my mom and dad, and Jonathan’s mom and dad. We had a good amount of work to do when they all arrived on Saturday morning, and it was a full day. I thought it was great though. This kind of stuff is so fun for me, but I also like the brain space I get back when things like this are over. :-)
The Invitation
Rosemary really wanted it to say “You are invited” at the top. I found the Narnia font at dafont.com. I don’t remember where the lion came from, but I had to recolor it red. We folded the invites and sealed them with sealing wax that I’ve had since middle school.
Painting the Wardrobe
A lot of the Narnia parties I found online had cardboard doors for the wardrobe. We didn’t have that much cardboard so I painted a canvas drop cloth then we nailed it up in the entryway. You could use a shower curtain or a sheet and get the same effect.
Originally, I hadn’t planned to do panels on the doors, but Charlotte walked on the door before the paint had dried and left little marks. It ended up looking better with the panels so it all worked out. I used the invitation to help me free hand the lion at the top.
The Lamp Post
I saw a lot of lamp posts made from real lanterns, but I couldn’t find a tutorial on how to make one from a floor lamp and I really wanted to do that so we could have a lamp post, too. How can you have a Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe party without a lamp post? So I converted our floor lamp into a lamp post using paper plates, a bowl, cardstock, wax paper, spray paint, and a wooden bead.
Once everything is painted, the little plate is taped around the bottom. The large plate is held in place at the top of the harp with the lamp finial. The finial is covered with an upside down bowl, and the bead is glued to the top of the bowl. The mullions are just cardstock strips taped to the top and bottom plates. To finish it off, I cut some wax paper and tucked it around the edges and secured it with a little tape, leaving a bit of an opening so that I could turn the light on and off.
Front Door
Nothing too fancy here. I could have skipped painting the sticks. I don’t know that they added much. There was a wreath on the door that said “Happy Birthday” and had some snowflakes.
Wardrobe Entrance
Once you entered the foyer, the wardrobe was on the right. We hung it up with two small nails at the top on each side then I cut the opening once it was hanging. Once cut, it didn’t hang perfectly straight, but I knew that would happen and it wasn’t a big deal at all.
Lantern Waste
Once inside the wardrobe we entered Lantern Waste and we had a hanging rack with coats, the lamp post, and various Christmas trees. (Some of the kids didn’t quite get why we still had our Christmas decorations up!) :-) My mom pretty much set this room up on her own. Jonathan did climb over the armoire to get an extension cord plugged in for her.
My mom covered the furniture up with drop cloths and plastic sheeting to make it look snowy.
Rosemary really wanted tinsel and snowflakes between the rooms and Janice got those up and ready for her. She used fishing line tied to two nails on the sides of the wall and added the tinsel and snowflakes.
We set up this area as a place for me to introduce the story and for Rosemary to later come back to and open her presents. The story was broken up and told at different parts of the party and in different locations.
The “lantern” had a really pretty glow when it was on.
Janice hung another transition snowflake wall between the foyer and dining room.
Narnia Winter – Kitchen and Dining Room
The ceiling was draped with snowflakes attached to fishing line. I bought the snowflakes at Dollar Tree and picked up a few more at after Christmas sales.
For the chalkboard in the kitchen, I pulled this from one of the illustrations in the book.
The cake table with the chalkboard door and birthday banner.
The birthday banner was the most expensive thing there I think, just because of the glittery paper. I cut the triangles with my cutter, printed the letters on cardstock in the Narnia font, and cut those out with my circle cutter. I strung the pennants on fake pearl strands simply because that’s what I had. If I had had some white ribbon on hand, I would have used that. Because of the pearls, the banners were a bit heavier so tape wouldn’t hold them up on the wall. I used tiny nails and tied knots in the pearls and hung them that way.
We had hot chocolate with the cake. The cups came from the party store after Christmas so they were half off.
I used buffalo snow and boxes to make it looks snowy and add height. The mason jars were full of Epsom salt from when I used them at Christmas.
The little trees came from Dollar Tree and Home Depot. I bought a bunch for the craft and used the ones that were too big for the table.
The Birthday Cake
I decided to make Rosemary’s cake since the ones we saw on Pinterest looked easy enough to replicate. I used two boxes of chocolate cake mix (I’m not a baker at all and didn’t have any desire to make them from scratch) and three tubs of store bought icing. Rosemary wanted it to look like dirt covered in snow. (Seriously, that’s what she said).
I added a few trees and Ben’s Schleich lion. I put some saran wrap underneath them, just so they wouldn’t touch the icing.
Adding the little banner and not attempting to write, “Happy Birthday, Rosemary” in icing is perhaps the best choice I made for this party. Usually, I get so frustrated making a cake that I want to throw it in the garbage. That wasn’t the case this time.
Right before the party, my mom and Janice set to work preparing the toast and tea for the guests to have as they arrived. Lucy has toast and tea with Mr. Tumnus when she first meets him so that’s why we had that. I bought white cups from Dollar Tree and added the little lion logo and used red snowflake plates that I bought at Target after Christmas (because I accidently didn’t buy enough white ones for both cake and toast, but I figured the red worked fine and I didn’t have to go out and get more white ones).
The Porch – Craft, Waterless Snowglobes (Narnia in a Jar)
For the craft, we made waterless snow globes using plastic peanut butter jars, tiny bottlebrush Christmas trees (from Dollar Tree and Home Depot), ceramic lanterns (from Dollar Tree), and fake snow flakes. We did it out on the porch so we could just sweep up the flakes when we were done.
I spray painted both sides of the lids and added the quote, “Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia” to the top. The jars were a bit foggy and spotted, so I pulled out the Windex and actually cleaned the inside of each jar, even though they’d been through the dishwasher.
Mr. Tumnus’ House
The playhouse became Mr. Tumnus’ house. The warrant for his arrest was taped outside. I found an image of the warrant that was used in the movie and just imitated it. The wording is slightly different than in the book, but it was close enough for me and didn’t bother anyone at the party.
Mr. and Mrs. Beaver’s House
We stopped by the Beaver’s house during the party for one of the parts of the story. We have a big pile of sticks in the back yard. I just taped a sign to it and said it was the Beaver’s house.
Archer “Targets”
The kids did a bit of archery during the party. I finally found bows and arrows at the Dollar Tree (I was about to give up and just make them using something I saw online). I saw a Narnia party that used hula hoops as targets instead of traditional targets and thought that would work well for us. It was less competitive that way. And the bows definitely had a steep learning curve.
Aslan’s Camp
We also visited Aslan’s Camp during the party, which consisted of our camping dining canopy and a bunting made of scraps of material (I already had) strung on twine (that I had as well). I plan on saving this bunting should at some point one of our children decide to have a Harry Potter party (not that we’ll be reading them anytime soon) or decide to attend FSU. :-)
I think that’s it for the prep, next post will be the actual party.
Thanks to my dad and Becky for actually taking pictures of everything. I get so wrapped up in things that I often forget to get pictures.
