It's been a great week of Spring party ideas -- there are so many amazing parties out there! I hope you have gotten lots of inspiration from the featured parties and are thinking about all of those Spring birthday party themes for your own children. Today's party idea is one of my own parties, my Enchanted Fairy Party.
This one is from last Spring, and it was for a friend's little girl who was turning seven. At the time, I was just developing my new party business and wanted to create some wonderful theme parties to offer locally for the little ones in my town. I was so inspired by seeing Giggledust Parties fairy party that I knew it had to be in the party lineup. Jamie's beautiful party sent my creativity into overdrive and this Enchanted Fairy party was the result.
The tree was a labor of love. I thought for weeks about how I was going to create a fabulous fairy tree centerpiece and this was what I came up with. I found a great piece of driftwood at the Nashville Flea Market (imagine my surprise when I came across one that looked just like an old tree trunk and in the perfect size, too!). I then used the plastic cover to a turtle sandbox as the base for the tree canopy. I covered it in green burlap and then hot glued all sorts of leaves, ferns and moss to the burlap to create a the perfect tree top.
I purchased some iron garden pieces at Hobby Lobby (50% off) to resemble garden gates. I sprayed them with adhesive spray and then adhered some moss to fairy-it-up a bit. Then I attached some silk flower garlands, ivy and some glittery leaves as well as a hand painted "Happy Birthday Sulli" sign to welcome all of the little fairies who were coming to the party.
To create a welcoming entry and to let the guests know that something special was in store, I lined the driveway with iron garden hooks covered in silk gerbera daisies (Dollar Tree), tulle, and paper butterflies (from Hobby Lobby).
Little Sulli was quite the fairy princess and loved sharing her special day with her fairy friends.
I used a tree branch cut into small rounds to fashion a stairway up to the fairy house. The door was made from a thin piece of hobby wood (Hobby Lobby) that I carved some "wood slats" into with an exacto knife, cut the top in the gothic arch, and added a dollhouse window (Hobby Lobby) to the center. The door handle was also a dollhouse piece (Hobby Lobby) and the hinges I made from left over wood pieces and attached some nailhead pieces as well. I then surrounded it in moss and silk flowers and berries to soften it a little.
The windows were dollhouse parts (Hobby Lobby), but the window boxes and shutters I made myself from scrap hobby wood pieces that I cut to shape with an exacto knife. I then put a quick coat of stain on everything, and after that dried, I used a thinned-down white paint to whitewash it a little.
I made napkins in 5 or 6 different patterned fabrics to coordinate with all of the flower colors on the table. And then I made some napkin wraps from scrap fabric and then glued on a tiny bird's nest (Hobby Lobby), sweet little bird (Dollar Tree), and two blades of artificial grass for the bird's tail.
I loved the IKEA vase glasses that Jamie from Giggledust used and I decided to do the same thing on my own table. Each glass was wrapped around the neck with a sweet gerbera daisy and filled with pink lemonade, or "Fairy Berry Juice."
The party favors were little organza drawstring bags (Hobby Lobby wedding section) filled with fairy trinkets like pixie sticks, ring pops, bubbles, etc. Attached was a tag that read, "Thanks for coming to my party! Fairy wishes, Sulli".
I made each girl her very own fairy and mushroom cap, too, for a place card. I found some unfinished round, wood boxes at Michaels and then stained them. I glued a little cotton batting to the top and covered it with a cut circle of cocoa fiber from a cocoa fiber plant liner that I bought at the Dollar Tree. I had painted the cocoa fiber with red spray paint before attaching it to the mushroom base. Then I added a garden stake (Michaels) with each girl's name that I had printed on my own computer.
The fairies were a little more complicated, but basically it was a unfinished wood piece that resembles a doll head and body from Hobby Lobby that I painted flesh colored and added facial features with small Sharpie markers. Then I took a chenille pipe cleaner, wrapped it around the middle (or torso), twisted it in the back, and created two arm shapes from the ends of the pipe cleaner. Next I wrapped the arms in flesh colored embroidery thread and secured it with hot glue. I then used a silk flower for a dress, embroidery floss for hair, and the plastic silk flower receptacle for a hat.
The Fairy Dessert table was one of my favorite elements of this party. I was actually running out of party funds when it came time to work on the food table, so I improvised a little by "shopping" in my backyard. I found some small logs and a hollowed out log, too, that I ended up using to display different party foods. With the hollowed out log, I put a piece of 1x4 wood inside that I had drilled holes into to hold the mushroom pops.
For the fruit wand display, I also drilled out holes in a log and had them standing upright to resemble fairy wands. I used an iron double tier basket covered in wisteria flower garlands to hold snacks such as "Butterfly Wings" (small pretzels) and "Fairy Trail Mix" (Chex Mix).
"Pixie Dust Sandwiches" which were just peanut butter sandwiches cut with a butterfly cookie cutter. I put a thin layer of butter on top and then added some non-pareils to make them a little more fairy-like. The display piece for the sandwiches was found on the unfinished wood aisle at Hobby Lobby, and I made some food label holders to match from cut pieces of 1 1/2" diameter branches.
I made a cupcake stand by covering a wood plate ($1 at Goodwill) with moss for the base and then adding cut pieces of small tree trunks for each of the tiers. I found some clear acrylic plates at Target for the two top layers and a glass dinner plate from Walmart for the bottom plate. I topped it off with a sweet bird's nest (Tuesday Morning) and some silk flowers.
I made the cupcakes and the fondant flower and fairy wand toppers using different colors of marshmallow fondant and fondant cutters (from Hobby Lobby). I'm sad I didn't get a better photo of the wands -- they were so cute! I used small star fondant cutters in two sizes. First I cut the larger size star from pink fondant, and then inside of that star, cut out a small star and removed it from the middle. Then I rolled some white fondant into wand shapes and cut them into approximately 3" pieces. After the fondant dried out a little (a few days), I coated the star with pink lustre dust and attached the wand to the back of the star with some melted white candy coating. They were the sweetest edible fairy wands!
I made a simple chocolate bundt cake for the birthday girl and surrounded it with crushed Oreo's to add a little "dirt." I softened a store-bought can of icing in the microwave and poured it on top of the cake, added some green sugar, and then some "mushrooms" I made from unfinished wood parts from Hobby Lobby painted to resemble toadstools.
The bunting I made from scrapbook papers punched out with a circle punch, the "Happy 7th Birthday Sulli" that I had made on my computer, and then strung everything onto small ribbon and attached it all to wooden sticks.
The costumes were inspired by those from Giggledust parties, and I found the leotards (finally!) from Sookie Leotards and then bought some inexpensive wings that I embellished with ferns and silk flowers. I made 12 tutu skirts from tulle so that the little girls could have fun fluttering around like real fairies.
For the headpiece, I wrapped Dollar Tree headbands in green grograin ribbon and silk flowers. The wands were made from Christmas ornaments I found in the clearance section of Tuesday morning (this was the silvery stick piece). Then I took a small paper mache star and painted it silver and then hot glued it on top of the ornament stick to resemble a wand. I tied green curling ribbon to the base and added a lavender silk flower to finish it off.
The games for this party were so much fun. I had a forest full of games to keep the girls entertained throughout the party. First the entered "Sulli's Enchanted Garden" where they found lots of fun places like the "Mushroom Grotto" where they had to find natural materials like sticks, rocks and pine cones to help build back the Queen Fairy's house that had been blown over by the Evil Wizard.
They also went through "The Land of Flowers" where the girls played a fun game. I told them the Tooth Fairy had flown overhead the previous night and accidentally dropped her money bag. The girls found all the coins and the Tooth Fairy was so happy, she let them keep the money. I made the flowers by using a wire flower I bought at Hobby Lobby then added crepe paper and felt backings, attaching it to a green dowl and adding large felt leaves.
And at the "Shimmering Moonlake" (which was actually some bunched up sparkly blue fabric with rocks surrounding it and a stuffed frog on a green burlap and silk flower lily pad that I made), the girls looked for moonrocks around the Shimmering Lake so the could give them to the gnome to enter the forest, which was a sweet little garden gnome I purchase half off at Hobby Lobby.
And at the "Shimmering Moonlake" (which was actually some bunched up sparkly blue fabric with rocks surrounding it and a stuffed frog on a green burlap and silk flower lily pad that I made), the girls looked for moonrocks around the Shimmering Lake so the could give them to the gnome to enter the forest, which was a sweet little garden gnome I purchase half off at Hobby Lobby.
We had a "Pin the Wand on the Fairy" game that I painted on an old piece of scrap wood and hung on a tree. And there was a "Flower Ring Toss" game that I made by creating a large flower (as I did in the Land of Flowers but this time I cemented it into a plastic planter) and letting the girls throw hula hoops around it to win a little bag of candy.
The craft table was alot of fun, too. I bought $1 birdhouses at Michaels and collected a pile of leaves, acorns, moss, etc. and let the girls make their own fairy houses.
This was the "Pixie Dust" Making Station. Each of the girls had a little container (Dollar Tree) to fill with their choice of colored sands and glitters. I attached a silk flower head to each of the containers to pretty them up a bit, and the girls could snap on the lid and take their pixie dust home with them after the party.
Above you can see the "Mushroom Grotto" in the background of the Pixie Dust making station. I've had lots of moms asking about how to make these. Although each was made with different finds for the bases (plastic megaphones, tomato cages, plastic planters, etc - almost all from the Dollar Tree), I covered them all with cotton batting and then fabric. For the tops, I used cocoa plant liners (the small ones were from the Dollar Tree and the larger ones from Big Lots) that I painted with spray paint and added felt white circles to have them resemble toadstools.
This had to be one of my favorite parties of all time. It was an absolute labor of love for me
and I don't think I'll ever forget all of the fun I had creating it.
The day was just gorgeous and I think little Sulli had such a wonderful 7th birthday celebration -- one I hope she remembers for a long, long time to come!
If you would like to see more of this party, you can check out my post from last year here: Enchanted Fairy Party.
