Fairy Favors!

I made this Fairy Play Dough for Amelia’s Fairy birthday party. It turned out so well! It’s hard to tell by the picture, but the play dough is completely sparkly! I found the recipe from Homemade by Jill via Skip to my Lou. (Pop over for a great tutorial!) This is such a great recipe, the play dough stays nice for weeks! The batch I made three weeks ago is still soft and supple!

 

Fairy Play Dough

Adapted from Homemade by Jill

1 cup flour

1 cup water

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon oil

1/4 CUP of salt

food coloring

3/4 cup of glitter

Combine flour, water, cream of tartar, oil and salt. in a medium pan over medium heat.

Stir continuously until the mixture forms a ball around the spoon.

Remove from heat and dump dough onto a clean surface.

When it’s cool enough to handle, shape into a ball and cut the ball into quarters.

Use the food coloring to color the dough. Tip: if you rub a bit of shortening into your hands before you start kneading the coloring into the dough, it will decrease the likeliness of you staining your hands! Cool, huh!

Once it’s colored roll the dough flat and sprinkle the glitter over it.

Fold the dough over itself, sealing the glitter inside.

Continue kneading until all the glitter is incorporated.

Store in airtight containers.

 

I rounded out the rest of the favor bag with glittery fun foam stickers, a ring pop, and a few items scored from the Dollar Spot at Tarjay: candy buttons and stickers, Tinkerbell socks, and a glittery pencil.

For our Fairy fun headquarters, click here!

Fun and Games

Amelia was turning four and I decided to go with games and activities that didn’t necessarily have a ‘winner’. It seems like with kids this age that, even if every kid wins a game, someone is broken-hearted at some point. So we planned things accordingly. (And only ended up with one meltdown! My overexcited five year old! Ah well.)

I learned from the mistakes I made at my son's party and made a little itinerary for Amelia’s party so I would have it clear in my mind what was happening next. I printed them out so that I could get a little assistance from the other parents in herding the 14 children we had attending the party in the right direction. Worked like a charm!

I did run into a little traffic jam right at the beginning of the party when all the kids were arriving and needing attention and help with their costumes all at once. I need to plan a little better for that next time!

So the kids arrived and got all dressed up in Fairy gear. While they were getting ready they got to dig in a sandbox for beads to make necklaces with. I wanted to use a kiddie swimming pool but the only ones they had at the store were just way too big. So I just used an under-the-bed storage tote. I tucked a bedsheet in it and under the edges and just poured the sand into that.

When everyone was ready we followed a trail of fairy dust (glitter) into the Enchanted Fields.

We have a large field next to our house.

Jay spend hours out there mowing a path all through it. It had loops and swirls and dead ends.

The grass is SO TALL that you absolutely can’t cheat!

I was so excited for this part of the party! The kids loved it!!

Amelia rounding up her straggling troops.

The trail let to the Fairy Grotto, which was decorated with 40+ paper fairies and some pretty bunting.

They found this note, and had a fun scavenger hunt!

       

Amelia found one of the sticks. All the scavenger hunt items were glittered within an inch of their little lives!

Then we came back to the yard for a game of Fairy Freeze Tag. I gave one fairy a soft wand (so we wouldn’t have any accidental injuries!) and another fairy a bottle of pixie dust. The fairy with the wand tagged someone and then that child had to hold still until they were sprinkled with pixie dust by the rescue fairy!

    

Then we went inside and the fairies made their own bottles of pixie dust. (Colored sand with glitter mixed in)

 

This gave me time to get the Feast Table ready!

For our Fairy fun headquarters, click here!

Costume Party

As all the children arrived for Amelia’s birthday party we got the dressed up in their fairy gear! I had it set out and ready to go on the ‘costume table’, later to be known as the ‘Fairy Feast Table’.

I loved how this table turned out! I borrowed the garland idea from Prudent Baby. I used all different sized butterflies (I just cut them out freehand), but next time I would stick with the smaller ones. The big ones sorta flopped around more than I’d have liked. But I thought it looked pretty! I covered the table with brown craft paper like I always do, but I trimmed it close around the edges before taping it down with packing tape. Then I looped lengths of crepe paper all the way around and covered the edge with another piece. I love the skirty look it has! And it was cheap and easy, always a big plus in my book! Next time instead of individually taping each piece of crepe paper on I am just going to run lengths of double sided tape around the edge and stick the crepe paper to that. I figured that out halfway through and it made it go a LOT faster! (Made the post-party cleanup easier too!)

The girls each got a tutu. (Lengths of multi-colored tulle knotted around a long ribbon. It tied in the back so I didn’t have to worry about waist measurements.)

And pixie ears on a flower crown.(I found the pattern for the ears at Make and Take. But my kids had a hard time keeping them on so I just cut two little slits in them and threaded them onto the headbands.)

A sparkly wand! (Tutorial coming soon, I promise!!!)

And fairy wings! I ordered these from Oriental Trading Company and painted them with acrylic paint. Of course, the birthday girl’s got an extra splash of glitter!

Here’s the Birthday Girl!

 

And a few of her fairy friends!

We had almost as many boys attending the party as girls, so of course they needed costumes too! They received their wands and wings, and they also got pixie ears. . . .

Pixie hats. . . .

And elf pouches!

Aren’t they cute!

For our Fairy fun headquarters, click here!

Fairy Feast

Fairy Feast Menu

Candied Sunflower Seeds*

Banana Chips*

Yogurt Covered Raisins*

Cotton Candy*

Minty Kisses*

Strawberry Marshmallows*

Fresh Raspberries*

Marshmallow Wands*

Cake Pops

Rice Crispie Star Wands

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Ants on a Log

Buttermilk-Herb Dip with Baby Carrots

Raspberry-Vanilla Yogurt Parfaits

Fruity Frappe

 

*Store-bought treats

I’ve been drooling over all the gorgeous party dessert tables I’ve been seeing all over Blogland. I was really hoping to create something gloriously similar, but I ended up with too much food and too small a table! Oh well, it still tasted great! I bought a lot of little things for the Fairies to nibble on and most of the rest of the party food I made in advance. Hallelulijah! I hate all the pressure of making party food the day of the party! Especially since this one was a morning party!

I really loved the chocolate bowls (the kids did too!) but they would have been better in an air-conditioned room or served in the cooler months. They held up okay for the party, but when it was over they sort of went to pieces! Ooops! I used the same method as I did for the chocolate nests I did for Easter. But I formed these over the backs of some disposable bowls, and I brushed on an extra layer of melted chocolate once they had set up. Worked like a charm, until the heat index rose!

I came across the star wands on How Does She? by way of Kelloggs Rice Crispies. These were perfect for Amelia’s party! I had planned on making shortbread star cookie wands, but my nephew (who was attending the party) was recently diagnosed as lactose intolerant, so I needed to figure out different party foods. These have the added bonus of being ‘make ahead’. You can make them up and freeze them for up to 6 months! Sweet! One less party food to worry about the day of the bash! I added food coloring to the marshmallow mixture before I stirred in the cereal. By the way, I still stand by these treats, but I do suggest you don’t try to make and serve them on a boiling hot day. It was 83 degrees here in Maine (the weather website said it felt like 105 and it wasn’t kidding!) and by the time it was time for the fairies to feast the stars were plopping off their wands and onto the table. Bummer.

I loved the frappe drink we served. I portioned out some mixed berry sherbet into the cups the day before and popped them in the freezer. Then when it was time to eat I brought them out and poured Sprite over them. Easy Peasy!

For the cake pops I used my favorite cupcake/cake recipe. Which I am going to post in it’s purest form, I keep thinking it’s already on my blog and it isn’t! (Different variations are.) Head over to Bakerella to see how she makes perfect cake pops. I don’t make perfect cake pops, I just plop them on their heads and cover them with sprinkles!

Vanilla Cake/Cupcakes

From Gesine at Confections of a Closet Master Baker

2 sticks butter, room temperature

2 cups of sugar

5 eggs, room temperature

3 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Spray two 8” round pans with Baker’s Joy, alternatively, fill two 12 cup muffin tins with liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In your blender, beat the butter for a minute to make sure it’s completely softened.

Add the sugar and beat until it’s light and fluffy. Very light, very fluffy. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure ALL the butter and sugar is light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Add a third of the flour mixture and beat well.

Add a third of the buttermilk and beat well.

Repeat with the remaining flour and buttermilk. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl well to make sure all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour in the vanilla and beat the batter well.

Portion out into pans and bake for 20-25 minutes. (For cupcakes, check them after 15 minutes)

The (cup)cakes should be golden and should spring back from a light touch.

Cool on wire racks completely before frosting.

    

I’m pleased to report that the fairies loved their feast! What sweet-toothed child wouldn’t?

For our Fairy fun headquarters, click here!

Fairy Bower

I saw this idea on the Family Fun website and absolutely fell in love. I wanted one for Amelia! We have this great sunroom on the front of our house which hasn’t had much attention paid to it, so it was fairly empty of furniture, which made it the perfect place for a fairy bower!

We had covered all the windows to the sunroom with sheets and craft paper, so we could work on it in secret. Then we took down all the window coverings the night before the party. When Amelia saw it the next morning she was absolutely starry-eyed. She just whispered, ‘it’s sooooooo beeeea-u-ti-ful’! She played in it all morning while we were all getting dressed and ready for the party.

 

I had planned to use yards and yards of tulle, but then my mom sent me this bed canopy that used to be my sister’s. So then I planned to just add tulle it and use the canopy as the base.

 

Then I found this canopy at the thrift store! Sweet! 

And I remembered the netting curtains that used to hang in Amelia’s room. I had four panels of them. So I threaded two panels each onto the outer ring of a small embroidery hoop and strung them up with some yarn. 

Since I didn’t want to damage them, I used safety pins and fishing line to string up sections of the canopies. Then we pinned fairies and butterflies all over them!!! The butterflies are just so super simple, you can make a hundred of them while watching a single movie. That’s what I did! You’ll find the directions for there here at Family Fun.

I also hung a bunch of fairies from the ceiling with fishing line. It looked like they were floating in the air!

 

I found the flower fairies on Family Fun too! I made 53 of them before I ran out of embroidery floss (used for the hair.) You can see my (somewhat blurry) tutorial on them here.

 

I sent all the little girls from the party home with the fairy of their choice. (The rest are going in Amelia’s bedroom!)

I covered the floor with some comforters to make it more pleasant to sit in.

The fairies enjoyed their picnic inside the bower!

 

And one took a little fairy nap. The end.

For our Fairy fun headquarters, click here!

Fairy Decor

Would you like to take a tour of Amelia’s Fairy Party?

Welcome to Fairyland! I used freezer paper, craft paint and muslin to create a sign.

Fairy Fruit tree! (Gauzy bags filled with glittering gumdrops)

Fairy Bower decorated with butterflies and fairies.

 

Gift nook.

Doorway into house, and some of the tutus for the girls’ costumes.

Costume table.

Later: Fairy Feast table

For our Fairy fun headquarters, click here!