Many times when parents are planning a winter birthday party for their children, they feel limited by the options of what theme, decorations and activities they can have, since weather often plays a determining factor in the party events.  When my daughter was about to turn 4 years old, I decided that I didn't want to have to worry about whether or not the outside conditions were going to cooperate with our party plans, so I planned an indoor party based on the classic movie, "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory."

To be honest with you, however, the weather was not the first condition that helped me choose this particular party idea.  It was my daughter's fascination with the "Wonka Room."  You see, one night we were sitting in our living room, after dinner, and settled in to watch one of the all-time classic, original 1971 children's movies, "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory."  As I watched the excitement grow on my daughter's face, when Charlie entered into the Wonka Room, the thought occurred to me..."It's perfect!  What a great children's party theme!"

Educational Elements

• Name recognition for 3 and 4 year olds, by locating their name labeled candy throughout the party
• Artistic learning and creativity through decorating & creating unique "gingerbread houses"
• Candy counting book, offered as goody bag gift to help incent and promote reading and math skills

The Cake

HOW TO...

The first thing I did, was begin planning out her birthday cake.  I asked her what her favorite scene was from the movie and she said, "The boat scene, with the chocolate river.  Also, the Oompa Loompa scene, when they're dancing and pouring sugar."  So, I decided to incorporate both of these scenes into her cake, as shown above.

At this point, I had never worked with fondant or character modeling before, and was wondering how I could develop the sugar figures I was envisioning in my mind.  I quickly ran over to pick up my first hardback, decorator's cake book that I had purchased...Sylvia Weinstock's "Sweet Celebrations" .  In her book, I remembered that she had made an "Alice In Wonderland" cake, using fondant for the characters.  I had never used fondant before, but decided I would give it a try.  I used the photo of Sylvia's whimsical cake as my inspiration in pushing myself to try these techniques and see if I could create something appealing to the children.

I went to my  favorite, local cake store, Cake Carousel, and purchased a 5 pound package of fondant, some food paste coloring and lemon extract, a fine sable paint brush for the facial detail work, edible dusting powders, and some gumpaste/fondant modeling tools.  From there, I went home, popped in the video of the movie, I had since purchased, and paused it when it came to the Oompa Loompa scene.  From there, I began molding a more animated version of the Oompa Loompa's, each carrying or pushing something different.  The heads, arms and legs, I attached together using raw spaghetti.  I hand painted the finishing details for each figure, using the sable brush, dipped into a diluted version of coloring, made by mixing a tiny amount of lemon extract with the food paste coloring.  The mini accessories for the Oompa Loompa's were purchased at the local craft store.

Once my figures were made, I moved on to the boat, made of fondant, wire and a plastic piece for the windshield.  The painted detail accents were made from mixing lemon extract and a small amount of dry, edible gold dust powder, to form a paste.  The stone tunnel, and rocky cliff, waterfall walls were created using a foil covered cardboard base, which was glued together using a non-toxic glue and covered in hand molded fondant stones, which were scraped and shaped with the gumpaste/fondant tools.  They were finished out with plastic ferns, plants & Palm Trees, buttercream vines and royal icing flowers, together with a buttercream waterfall.  These pieces took approximately 1 1/2 weeks to dry.  The cake was trimmed in varying colors of royal icing "drop flowers."   The pathway to the boat was made of Ghiradelli chocolate wafers.  Other items added for appeal were gumdrops, lollipops and swirled, candy stick candles.  To accommodate everyone's taste, I made half of the cake chocolate and half of it white and joined them together in the center with a dab of buttercream icing to hold them in place.  Finally, I iced both cakes, as one, on a large, full sheet cake board and  iced with a decorator's buttercream icing, tinted either brown or green with food paste coloring.  Since some children are allergic to chocolate, I felt it was best to simply color the vanilla buttercream brown for the waterfall and river.  The green grass on top of the cake and around the base were both made with a No. 233 icing tip.  The side lettering was made of royal icing, using the basketweave tip No. 46.

Wonka Invitations

HOW TO...

• Purchase Wonka Milk Chocolate Bars at your nearest grocery store, drugstore or online.  I purchased mine at Albertson's and my local drugstore
• At a craft store, purchase a few sheets of gold metallic scrapbooking paper to make the golden tickets, which will be inserted inside the candy bars
• Measure out the dimensions of the Wonka Milk Chocolate Bars and make a golden ticket template slightly smaller than the chocolate bar size
• Using your ticket template, set up your computer word processing sheet with the appropriate amount of tickets on each page 
• Set up your page with a decorative or block border around each ticket/rectangle space and insert the birthday invitation wording in the center
• For the invitation & golden ticket wording, visit Wonka's Golden Ticket.  Use this original ticket as a guide, changing it slightly to personalize, with the proper name, address, time, rsvp info.
• Cut out each golden ticket invitation
• Gently slide the foil lined chocolate bar out of the outer Wonka sleeve (can tear open, if necessary, and re-glue with non-toxic glue)
• Carefully open the foil from around the chocolate bar and gently slide the golden ticket, wording facing up towards the opening of the foil, so your guests are surprised with the golden ticket invitation the moment they open the candy bar
• Reinsert the foil lined candy bar inside the outer Wonka sleeve wrapping
• Buy some purple ribbon to tie around the outside of the bar like a package 
• On your computer, print out small squares of cardstock with the following...On the first line print..."(Insert Child's Name) You're Invited".  On the second line print... "Look Inside To See If You Are The Winner Of The Golden Ticket"   

Party Entrance & Bags

HOW TO...

• When children arrive, greet them at the door with a computer printed nametag, shaped like an egg, which has then been applied to a colorful piece of cardstock.  Safety pin it to their shirt, so that everyone can call them by name.  The nametag might say something like..."(Insert Child's Name) Is A Good Egg!" (this was a line taken from the movie)
• The entryway can be lined with plastic Christmas candy canes, draped with artificial candy garland strings and a sign saying welcome to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  The sign can be made from various bright colors of butcher paper or construction paper.  Template for lettering can be found on favorite google images for Wonka 
• Upon entry, each child can be given a colorful, handled, paper bag, personalized with their name at the top, decorated with a computer printout of the video cover and highlighted with gel puff paints.  Each bag should have the child's name printed on it, in case they set it down during the party and can't remember which one was theirs.  The bags are used, as they make their way through their beginning stop in the Willy Wonka Candy Factory

              

Beginning Stop - "Willy Wonka Candy Factory"

Wonka Candy Room...Children enter the room and go to each candy station identifying and picking each piece of candy labeled with their name.

Lollipop Tree Forest

 

Candy Tree

Gummy Bear Tree

Candy Covered Pinwheel Flowers

"Pick Your Favorite Petal"

HOW TO...

        Lollipop Tree Forest

• Using a hot glue gun, cover a long, rectangular piece of styrofoam with moss
• Decorate, as shown, with ferns and lollipops on each side of the center gumdrop candy tree
• Make your center tree, using a styrofoam cone, covered with winding gumdrops and artificial miniature ivey (gumdrops are attached with toothpicks)
• Top off your gumdrop tree with a colorful bow
• Label each lollipop with a computer printed label, stating each child's name.  Wrap label around the stick like a flag

        Candy Tree

• Display painted styrofoam tree, secured on a wooden box base
• Tape Wonka candy to the top, leafy part of the tree, personalizing each piece with a green paper leaf nametag
• Crumple up green butcher paper at base, to represent grass in the box
• (Child's squirrel artwork displayed at the base)
• Staple or tape sign to tree trunk reading, "Can you find your 7 Wonka treats?"
• Help each child find their nametag and pick their 7 pieces of candy to place in their bag 

        Gummy Bear Tree

• Fill an old plastic flower pot with dirt, to act as your base
• Set flower pot on a round plastic tray, a few inches wider than your pot
• Arrange large strips of wood bark from fireplace logs around outside of pot
• Find a few fallen tree branches and arrange them in the pot of dirt for your tree form
• Using your computer, find a coloring book image or downloadable image of a large teddy bear
• Print out teddy bears, inserting the child's name on one foot
• Attach a wrapped gummy bear with tape onto the paper bear
• Use a hole punch to punch a hole in the top of the teddy bear
• Tie a  ribbon through the hole in the top and hang from the tree's branches 

        Candy Covered Pinwheel Flowers

• Insert pinwheel stick into terra cotta pots, filled with rocks, Plaster of Paris, etc
• Use double stick tape or scotch tape to apply individually wrapped, hard candies to petals of pinwheel flowers
• Decorate top of flower pot, using artificial ferns
• Tie raffia ribbon around flower pole
• Print out a long strand of paper with the instructions "Pick Your Favorite Petal" and weave through the fern
• Have children spin the flower and pick all the pieces of candy off of one of the petals to place in their bag
• (Note:  Pinwheels can be purchased in the springtime at your local craft store or sometimes at a garden center)

 Bounce House / "Wonkavator Room"

Our house was divided up into four separate rooms of play.    First we moved the furniture out of our living room, so it could accommodate a 15 foot bounce house.    When figuring out your space planning, keep in mind that your room must allow an extra three feet of empty space around the perimeter of the bounce house...between the bounce house and the wall.  The bounce house was generic in theme, with bright primary colors, so it flowed properly with the rest of the decorations throughout the house.

 


Gingerbread House Decorating Activity



HOW TO...

        Sugar Art "Gingerbread" Activity

• Use cake rounds, covered in decorative foil for bases
• Make a batch of royal icing to fill a parchment cone, pastry bag or ziplock sandwich bag.   Squeeze out a line of icing between all graham cracker connections, as described below
• Make a second batch, or two, to fill one container, per child, for them to use in decorating their houses and attaching candies.  Use a popsicle stick, as their royal icing spreaders 
• Pre-make graham cracker ("gingerbread") houses at least one week in advance (children will decorate, not construct).  Cover them with plastic wrap to keep them clean until party time.  To make the base, use 4 graham crackers, turned on their sides.  Use two additional cracker halves to make the roof.  To help the roof dry at the proper angle, test the distance of the space of the front & back graham cracker.  Place the angled cookies to rest over a long piece of crumpled and shaped tin foil.  Cut corner squares to make the chimney
• Collect two small containers, per child, to fill with brightly colored candies, such as Runts, Skittles, peppermints, M & Ms, lemon drops, Pez candies, gumdrops, gumballs, small marshmallows, gummy bears, sprinkles, metallic sugar balls, etc.  (I used sterilize baby food jars, for my containers, so  I could have the candy jars set up and completed ahead of time, while maintaining the freshness of the candy in a tightly sealed jar.  Next, I printed out peppermint pictures to glue on top of the lids.  Lastly, I glued a red, satin ribbon around the edge of the lid to finish off and cover any "Gerber" baby food printing.  This was a great way to recycle all of those baby jars and put them to good use) 

Wonka Birthday Cake Room

Birthday Cake Table

Peppermint Party Plates

HOW TO...

        Birthday Cake Table

• Decorate the table with a smiley face table cloth, party hats, napkins
• Sprinkle smiley face confetti down center of table
• Add Hershey's Chocolate Kisses to center of table
• Glue peppermint printouts over the baseballs displayed on this baseball themed, metallic, centerpiece spray
• Place Twizzler Straws on the table for the kids to use as straws with their punch

        Peppermint Party Plates

• Purchase clear plastic dinner plates at a craft or party store
• From your computer, print out peppermint designs in a variety of colors, inserting each child's name in the center
• Using a photo spray adhesive, that will not allow your colors to run, attach the peppermint cutouts to back of clear plates
• Wash plates gently, not allowing the backings to get wet

   
Paper Mache Mushroom For Ice Cream Sundae Station


HOW TO...

Paper Mache Mushroom For Ice Cream Sundae Station

• Take  a round piece of plywood (approx. 20") and double sink a screw into the bottom of it
• Attach a 1" round dowel rod in the center of the plywood (approx. 30" tall)
• Use newspaper, butcher paper or wrapping paper to crinkle up tightly around the dowel rod, gluing & taping, until a suitable, firm mushroom stem is molded
• Mold the top of the mushroom in the same manner, yet separately (to be attached to base after completed).  Form the indentions for clear, shallow plastic cups to be inserted on the top.
• Once the forms are made, you may begin the paper mache process of mixing a pan of half water, plus half flour to make a thick, but flowable mixture
• Tear strips of newspaper (approx. 2" wide x 8" long), dip in flour/water mixture to completely soak and begin sticking to base (make sure that the strips overlap and there are no holes or week spots).  Repeat this process 2 to 3 times to make a good, thick layer 
• Allow to dry for a few days
• Continue covering  top of mushroom in the same manner, allowing to dry for a few days
• When completely dry, begin painting with tempera paints.
• Allow paint to thoroughly dry, before taping and hot gluing the top part of mushroom onto it's stem
• Cover plywood base with crinkled green butcher paper to resemble grass
• Insert plastic cups into each hole in the top of the mushroom
• Serve ice cream sundae toppings, such as M&M's, pecans, mini-marshmallows, sprinkles, banana slices in cups
• Provide additional clear cups or bowls, with vanilla or chocolate ice cream, allowing the children to walk around the mushroom and make their own ice cream sundae creations.  Provide whipped cream and cherries on the side

Wonka Balloon Room

In honor of the hot air balloon scene at the end of the movie, fill a room with air-filled balloons (not helium), so the kids can run through them.  We decorated the room with a giant Willy Wonka hand-painted sign, which had candy suckers and peppermints taped to it for the kids to pick off.  This ended up being one of their favorite rooms...as they loved running through the balloons and watching them fly through the air.  Every child wanted to take a balloon home with them at the end of the party. 

 

Wonka Goody Bag Gifts



HOW TO...

        Wrapping Wonka Goody Bag Gifts

• Purchase a paperback book at your local bookstore regarding counting candy or another educational candy book
• Wrap each book in brown mailing paper
• Find an inspirational rubber stamp, which contains a verse about believing in yourself...that you can do anything, etc., and stamp the outside wrapping with purple ink (reflective of Wonka's hat colors...)
• Tie a purple ribbon around each wrapped and stamped book
• With a silver metallic pen, write an inspirational line from the movie on the ribbon

(Begin planning, preparation & production 2 to 3 months in advance)