Hello, everyone! I'm super excited to reveal my brother Will's 11th birthday party (one of them, that is; I will share the other soon!), which was themed around one of the best books ever, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I hand-drew the map from the book and the poster outside with a party-fied version of the cover image (featuring Milo and Tock). The banner of characters was created by printing collages I made of images gathered online, cutting them out, and gluing them onto string. The four small, blue dishes, which I forgot to fill, I handmade in my ceramics class at my school. I drew the Dodecahedron's face and stuck it onto an actual glass dodecahedron. I didn't do the other faces because I wanted to keep the elegant glass look while representing the character. I also made the bottles of noises by writing on peel-and-stick labels, filling the jars with water and sprinkling in glitter. The cookie cake was homemade by my mother, and I frosted the picture. For the Do-It-Yourself letter snacks, I bought letter cookies from Walmart. I made the Tock centerpiece in a sculpture class by sculpting clay around a clock from a thrift store and drawing with permanent marker. For favors, the guests each got a notebook, pencil, noise pills, light meals, and whistles. The notebooks were made with the pack of 3 for $1 or less at Walmart and printed images which I cut out and glued to the backs (making them the fronts). For the light meals, I cut out plates and wrote messages like "A Light Meal for you!" By the way, a lot of this probably makes no sense if you haven't read the book, but they're all references. The label pointing to the pencils read "Your Own Magic Staffs. 'Use them well and there is nothing they cannot do for you.'" That's a quote from the book. I came up with bubble wrap favors to go with the section about Kakofonous A. Dischord (the A stands for As Loud As Possible, by the way). I folded sheets of bubble wrap and stapled on labels that read "Noise Pills | Cures you of lack of noise. Just pop one capsule per moment of silence." The whistles were kind of relevant to the whole noise section of the book (I hope), so I added those, too. I also drew masks with card stock and scrapbook paper for every guest. There's a picture of everyone wearing them at the end. They were supposed to be kind of fun and silly, but the masks together looked very disturbing and creepy, honestly. For an added decoration I put up my Phantom Tollbooth Dream-catcher I made in sculpture, as well. At the front door, before they come in, I set up a table where they could take a 'reason'. The sign read "Welcome! You can't get in without a reason. Take a reason over here. These are good reasons for just about anything --a bit used, perhaps, but still perfectly serviceable." I wrote on the reasons things like "Why not?", "Because", "I wish to", "I must", and so on. I made them with gold-painted cardboard that I wrote on with pen and hot glue. I had to make the chains with hot glue because actual chains were too costly and string wouldn't do because the book specifies that the reason was on a gold chain. I made a suitcase with paper, tape and a cardboard box because the guard is supposed to dig the reason from a suitcase. I was very particular about sticking to the book the best I could.
I really hope you've read The Phantom Tollbooth because it's an amazing, hilarious book, and if you have (or once you have), hopefully this will give you some ideas for your own party. I hope you've enjoyed! Visit again soon for more tutorials and a "Jurassic World"-themed party!
-Lauryn
