A children's parade is homemade fun.
After "homemaking" a float and helping 150 children construct playing card costumes, Connie Oturzeneggar still admits she enjoyed preparing for Saturday's annual Days of '47 Youth Parade."It's been a learning experience," said Oturzeneggar, who supervised the Salt Lake Rose Park LDS Stake float. "My husband and I had never worked on a float before. It's not easy."
Her work helped bring to life a bright green, yellow and pink view of Alice in Wonderland at the Mad Hatter's tea party. Surrounding the float will be 150 children dressed as the Queen of Hearts' playing card subjects.
Each child picked a card out of a deck and patterned a costume after it, said Melissa Christensen, whose daughter Andrea will become Alice July 15. Posterboard was available at four Saturday meetings where adults helped the children get ready.
"They had to trace out the shape and glue it all on," Christensen said.
This float's theme is "Looking Back Through the Looking Glass - Remembrance of Childhood Imagination." Oturzeneggar said she chose the Wonderland motif and tailored it to the parade's theme of "A Past to Remember."
"I babysit a couple of girls and they brought over the video of Alice in Wonderland," she said. "I thought, this would be easy!"
Although the Oturzeneggars were inexperienced at building float frames and obtaining materials, the Days of '47 committee was there to help.
"They had a meeting and told us how to build it and where to get materials, so it wasn't such a frightening experience," Oturzeneggar said.
The Rose Park Stake float will line up with 80 other entries early Saturday morning at the Brigham Young Monument at South Temple and Main Street. The procession is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Children wishing to join at the last minute are encouraged to meet at the monument at 8:30 a.m. in costume.