It is becoming painfully apparent to me that I consistently fail at staging photos. It's one more thing to add to my list of things to practice and improve on.
My first-born turned nine last month and was very excited to have a fairy garden party. So, fairies and gardens and parties it was. I think the party turned out really well and everyone had a nice time. Luckily, the party was small as only four girls showed up; I thought it was the perfect number.
We started out making fairy crowns. I didn't take photos of that but this is the tutorial I followed for inspiration. (I used two packages of grapevine wire twine from Hobby Lobby to make 8 crowns.)
Next we made little wooden clothespin fairy dolls. My mother made this craft for the girls and had tutu skirts sewn out of tulle ribbon. She also had yarn hair glued on their head before-hand so the girls didn't have to do that. They just had to glue on skirts, ribbon tops and paint on a face.
Here's a photo of one of the fairy crowns resting on the table.
Next the girls decorated fairy houses (that my mother made out of paper mache cylindrical boxes and prepainted for them) and made roofs out of pine cones and moss. They put together fairy gardens using paper mache boxes as the base and nestled their fairy houses right at home. The paper mache products were 50% off at Hobby Lobby and the violas we planted in the gardens were on sale for about $.10 each.
We also painted little wooden pegs to look like mushrooms for our fairy gardens.
The cupcakes were inspired by this beautiful cake made to resemble an illustration from one of my daughter's favorite pop-up books, "How to Find Flower Fairies" by Cicely Mary Barker. (I used another of Ms. Barker's books, "Flower Fairies Paper Dolls", to scan an image for the invitations.)
The cupcakes were angel food cake (made from scratch and not altogether the easiest or best recipe which is why I'm not including it) and topped with whipped cream and berries with mint leaves. That was it. I had intended to scoop out some cupcake and fill them inside with lemon curd that I had made but I never got that far. I do have a recipe I love for lemon curd. I've shared one before on this blog but it's not my favorite recipe. I need to make sure I share my fave with you.
Phoebe, our Great Pyrenees, is looking all grown up at 6 months. She was terribly adorable. I think she thought the party was for her judging from her tail wags! When I called the girls for a photo in their crowns around the cake, Phoebe stood up and put her big paws on the table, as if she belonged in the photo. So we gave her a crown and her own photo moment.
My daughter insisted that we have fruit salad in cups. I think she got the idea from another fairy book by Ms. Barker, "The Girls' Book of Flower Fairies". It was a simple fare for a party but I suppose you'd not expect anything too fancy for a fairy.
It was too windy to display the tissue pom-pons I'd made. (Click here for the how-to.) Instead, Butterscotch joined our party and used them for mouse batting practice.
I have some sad news. Because I take too long to post my photos, I don't deliver our news in a timely way. Butterscotch was hit by a car last week and left in the road for us to find. She was truly the best of cats and very, very clever in so many ways. My last living memory of her is her trying to jump onto the fence so she could be close to my arms and face. She slipped and fell and I laughed at her ungraceful fall. I hope I reached down to pet her but I don't remember anything after laughing. I miss her very much.
She has already been buried in our rapidly expanding pet cemetery. I realize there is a horror book, and subsequent movie, by Stephen King about this and I'm trying hard not to think about it. Creepy! Butterscotch has not been seen reincarnated so I think we're good.
But on to good news. The puppies made their debutante appearance at the end of the party since they were 5 weeks old and needed lots of socialization. It was a genius stroke by husband. This, my friends, is why he is a winner. The party was great up until that point and the girls had fun with the fairy theme. Then we moved to puppies and the party became the definition of perfection, it became the epiphany of parties. Those poor children will never be able to enjoy another party the same way ever again because they have already reached party elyssium. Plain and simple.
I almost edited the video to cut out the end but, ultimately, it's too honestly child-like to leave out.
As we wrapped up the party, I snapped a few photos of my last remaining daffodils and newly blooming dogwood trees that were planted last fall. If I were a fairy, I would live here too.
