Fairy Parties and Magic Gardens

Although our youngest turned five in August, we just had a party to celebrate with all of her kindergarten friends. It was a lovely afternoon filled with fairies, a bit of magic and lots of fun. When I go into party planning mode I love to hear as many details as possible. So here is the nitty-gritty scoop on of the party…
I really like the idea of getting back to basics when it comes to throwing birthday parties. We made all of the food ourselves and decided to make large portions of the snack foods that the girls eat everyday. The party was from 1:30-3:30 in the afternoon, so we did not need to worry about serving lunch. We put out carrots and cucumbers with our favorite dip (Annie’s Goddess Dressing), grapes, pretzels, chips with salsa and hummus and individually packaged string cheese. The food worked out really well and the kids felt comfortable helping themselves because they were familiar with all of the foods. I am not a big baker so we made our cupcakes using Dr. Oetker Organics boxed cake and icing mixes.  They are delicious and although they are relatively healthy, they do not seem “weird” and all our young guests ate them right up.

Most of the decorations consisted of items we already had on hand.  We used the fairy pinata that we purchased as the centerpiece.  We pre-loaded the candy before setting it on the table so that when pinata time came it was ready to go. We are big fans of the “pull-the-string” method of “breaking” open the pinata.  No one gets hurt with a bat and after we are finished it can resume its role as the centerpiece. The rest of the decorations consisted of fresh flowers, a couple of fairy books and pressed flowers sprinkled all over the table.

We love making our own invitations.  It is a great way to involve the birthday girl or boy and is an authentic way for them to practice reading and writing their friends’ names. We start with blank notecards and choose stamps and stickers according to the theme of the party. We had a challenging time finding fairy stickers so we decided to get a little feet punch and to add glitter glue—suggesting the presence of a fairy leaving a trial of fairy dust.  I printed out the party details and glued them on the inside of the invitation.  With a class list and alphabet chart nearby, our five-year-old wrote the names on the front of the envelopes. When she grew tired of writing (it is hard work!) she simply wrote the first letter of the name and I completed the rest.

When I discovered the Magic Garden seed markers on LMNOP, both the party favors and project came together in my mind. After a bit of research, I found them on sale and sold in packs of three, so the price was reasonable. We added a sticker activity book and fairy Pez, to make the favor complete. For the packaging I used basic plastic party favor bags. I rolled the top of the bag down and then folded a small piece of recycled paper over the top.  Next, I punched two holes through the plastic and the paper and tied a bow with raffia.
All of the party guests were invited to make pots for a magic garden.  Each child was given a terra cotta pot and dish to decorate with tissue paper. We set out plates of Modge Podge (matte) and baskets with small cut squares of colorful tissue paper. They used sponge brushes to glue on the tissue and then to add one final coat to the whole pot. The results were beautiful!

We also had a great game of “Pin the Fairy on the Flower.” To avoid any upset, I had a small “prize” for everyone at the end of the game.

When the pots were dry, we placed them in bags labeled with each child’s name and slipped in the the party favors.

After an afternoon of fun and games our guests all went on their merry way home.

More Fairy Inspiration…