There's No Place Like HOME...Details...Part 2

I'm slowly working my way through trying to puy these posts into some sense of order.  I thought I'd try and explain the layout of the room and the ideas behind it all in this next post.

I broke the room into 3 main parts.  Kansas, the corn field and Gale Homestead, Munchkin Land, and the Emerald City.  Here we go:)


Outside the door our guests were greeted by this larger than life mural of the hot air balloon.

On the front door hung this sign...

It was really quite perfect because the door bell was broken!

This is my niece McKenzie.  She greeted our guests at the door.  This picture shows the scale of the mural a little better than the previous one.  I used painters cloths to paint all the murals on.  This one was a 9ft.x12ft.

When you walked into the room the first set you entered was Kansas.  We built a split rail fence and fashioned a corn field, complete with scarecrows behind it.  The Scarecrow table was here in this corner.  Allie aka our Scarecrow also hung out in this section of the room.  At the other end of this wall was Dorothy's farm house.  You could find Dorothy Gale behind the fence, under the porch of the house.  Auntie Em's fried chicken, tater salad, baked beans, yeast rolls, and home made cobbler with vanilla ice cream was on the menu.  My favorite scene of the whole room was here in Kansas at Dorothy's house.  I loved so many things about this area.  I loved the bicycle.  It was a rusted treasure we rescued one afternoon in Canton and I brought it home and painted it a bright, shiny, red.  I also loved that Ashley's Greypa included her name in the wood grain he drew on the side of the house.  Just a little detail not many noticed, but those of us who knew it was there smiled every time we saw it.  The mail box was another little detail I loved.

In between the corn field and Dorothy's house the movie played on a 10ft screen that came down from the ceiling.  It made me smile.

Munchkin land was on the opposite side of the room.  It was a fun, bright,and cheery spot.  The yellow brick road was designed by my in laws.  They did a fantastic job on it.  The mural in the back I painted over the summer.  We had larger than life flower boxes with hand painted mesh flowers that wobbled back and forth on springs.  Loved the whimsy of them!  One of my favorite parts of munchkin land were the large, bouncy, flowers that "grew" along the road. They had large polka dots, stripes, and chevrons on them.   Dave welded and painted the extra large leaves they grew out of.  By the end of the night all the flowers had been picked and the kids were bouncing them along the yellow brick road.  So fun!  Munchkin land was a wonderful place to play.  The Mayor greeted all our guests and awarded them a lollipop then they were invited to "shop" back in the lollipop stand.

I used an old hutch given to me by a friend and then turned it upside down to sit at the end of the yellow brick road.  We painted it with bright colors and filled glass jars with lots and lots of lollipops.

Definitely a favorite spot for most of our guests.

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The third section of the room housed our Emerald City.  It was the only part of our entire party that we bought already designed and didn't make ourselves.  Dave bought it for me for my birthday.  I was so excited!  My time this summer was limited since I spent most of it on the road with Blake as he played ball, and I didn't think I could get it built and painted before her party.   The set was beautiful.  We added the balloon columns to give it a three dimensional effect.  They were 6 1/2 feet tall.  So easy to build.  I loved the way they added that little bit extra to the room.  In the middle of the room we set up our forest.  It turned out sooooo good.  The pictures just don't show how amazing it looked.  The trees were so cool.  We made them by taking limbs off an old tree that had been recently cut down and building a base for each limb.  The limbs then became trunks and my brother and Blake drilled holes in them and placed branches in each hole.  The final product looked amazing and so real.  We covered the bases in Spanish moss and then tossed red apples in the mounds of moss at the base of the trunks.  The Tin Man and the Lion both hung out in the middle of the forest.  It couldn't have turned out any better.  I was thrilled with the final product.

My next post will show a little more of the room decor and then I'll start sharing what we did during the party.  Game details, favors, etc.  Its going to take a while to get through all this party stuff :) I'm not sure if I'll get to it tomorrow or not.  One of our patients blessed us today with a hospital bed for Ash and tomorrow it is my project to paint, monogram, and "Ashley" it up a little bit.  I also have to fit in a visit from the nurse and one of her doctors and then attend Allie's volleyball game.  I'll get back to sharing as soon as I can.