Fairy Tea Party!

What a wonderful birthday party we had! I got up at 5:00 a.m. and went to bed at 10:30 p.m.. It was an entire day of celebrating the wonderful life of my three year old daughter. I am posting some photos here of our party.

First I would like to start with by describing the day. It was sunny. Which is not what was fore-casted. The experts said it was going to rain all day.  But, it was dry and sunny. Unfortunately, the powers that held off the rain, also forgot to turn the temperature up. It was cold, cold, cold!!

Inside our home was another story!  My easy-up canopy tent helped set the stage for a lovely fairy forest in our living room.  My friend Meeghan and I got together Thursday night to make some tissue paper pom pom's. I hung them from the ceiling of the tent. I used green tulle and lots of flowers to decorate.

The little girls had a table set up in the center of the tent, which was the setting for their fairy tea party. I had originally wanted to put grass down in this room, but time got away from me and that never happened. The only other thing that I would change if I could turn the clock back...lights. The party started at 2:30 in the afternoon and ended around 9:30 p.m.. It got a little dark under the tent.

I feel like maybe I have gotten ahead of myself. The stage for this party was actually set a week or so before the date of the party. I spent several cold days in February making fairy outfits for each one of the little girls attending the party. Each girl received their costume along with an invitation to the party.  Pink, blue, green and purple fairy costumes really set the stage for this party. When the little girls arrived, they were each given a pair of wings, a fairy halo, and a fairy wand. The accessories for the fairies were purchased from  www.haloheaven.com.

The tea set the little girls are using was found at a local antique store.

A tea party would not be complete without the food or drink. Everything I served at the tea party was dainty and small (fairies have very tiny hands and mouths). I also wanted a variety so I had many options available. The birthday girl loves strawberries so we had them in as many different ways possible.

Fairy Tea Party Menu

Cucumber Tea Sandwiches

Egg Salad Tea Sandwiches

Cheese Tea Sandwiches

Peanut Butter and Jelly Tea Sandwiches

Flower Shaped Quiche

Strawberries filled with Fresh Whipped Cream

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

Fairy Chocolates

Fairy Stones (Jordan Almonds)

Fairy Puffs

Fairy Marshmallows

Sugar Cookies

Chocolate Strawberry Mousse

Fairy Punch

Tea

Coffee

Several friends loaned me their serving platters. I also found the glass dishes at a local thrift store for less than a few dollars each. The table cloths were all pieces of fabric I obtained using wonderful coupons from stores.

From Top to Bottom: Fairy Puffs, Fairy Marshmallows, Sugar Cookies, Flower Quiches

Strawberries with Fresh Whipped Cream and Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Tea Sandwiches
How cute is this serving platter!! My supervisor loaned it to me. So ornate and perfect for the tea.

Cupcakes

Sugar Cookies with Fondant Decorations

Flower Shaped Quiches

Chocolate Strawberry Mousse with Fresh Whipped Cream.
Again I found these glasses at a thrift store for a dollar.

Fairy Chocolates

The last critical piece to any birthday tale is the birthday cake. I honestly had no idea what kind of cake to make until I was talking to my friend Melissa. Melissa was telling me how her beautiful stepdaughter had specifically asked her to make a strawberry shortcake cake and Melissa was touched and honored.  Melissa showed me a photo of a cake made with Wilton's Wonder Mold. And I immediately knew what I was going to do for the fairy party. Execution of the cake in my head is always a different story!! I am no cake decorator..although in my dreams I am a fabulous one!!  The birthday cake is why I was up at 5:00 a.m. on the day of the party fretting that I had to get this one right! 

I purchased a new Barbie. This party was about fairies but not about Tinker Bell (I have nothing against Tinker Bell!!) so I was happy to see that Barbie has a new DVD out about Fairies and a line of fairy dolls comes with it. Unfortunately, they only had purple and pink dolls and My Short Chic's favorite color is green. Luckily, purple is her second favorite color and I went with a purple Barbie.

The directions for the Wonder Mold say to only use 1 cake mix but I beg to differ. It is absolutely a 1 1/2 to 2 cake mix cake pan. My cake ended up being to short for the Barbie. Such problems are hard to deal with at 5:00 a.m.! So, after some creative problem solving, I found a way to cut a hole in the cake board and prop the cake board on a round open cake stand. (Barbie's little feet hung below the cake board!!)

I tinted frosting and began piping. Initially I put purple frosting all over the dress but it just did not look "enough". So then I created a design and began piping small star flowers and came up with a winner. The look on your child's face when they see the cake is all the price you need as reward for your hard work.

All around the Fairy cake are various sizes of cupcakes. My wonderful husband helped me knead, tint and rollout fondant to make flowers to top the cupcakes. You can't really see it very well but the fairy was surrounded by butterflies. I attached small butterflies I found at CKC Convention to wire and poked them into the cake. The effect was amazing!

Other random moments from the party:

• 3/4 of the fairies chose to eat Cucumber Sandwiches over any of the other tea sandwiches.
• One Mommy made more spills than all the little fairies combined! (I won't name her but her initials are ... Meeghan!)
• The Daddy's, Grandpa, and big Brother who hide downstairs were all caught eating Fairy Food!
• I am not sure who loved the Lalaloopsy doll more: ME or the Birthday Girl. (okay, who am I kidding, it was ME!)
• Fresh Whipped Cream is so much better than anything you can buy in the store!
• It was Olivia's Nana who made the first spill at the Little Fairies table!
• And who knew the Fairy Punch was going to be such a big hit!!

The Mommies tea table. How cool is it that I found this fairy statue at the local Hobby store and it was on sale 50% off!

Check out the cool coffee server I found at a thrift store for only $15!!

One last photo from the Mommy table

Flower Blossom - Lalaloopsy doll I gave Olivia for her birthday present. She joined us for tea and cupcakes.

I want to end this post by telling you how exhausted we all were after this party. Our fairy tea party started at 2:30 p.m. and went to 4:00 p.m. We then had a family/friends gathering after that. My husband (have I mentioned how wonderful he is?) smoked pork ribs and beef brisket all day to serve at the second gathering. At one point we had over 30 people in the house! My mother made homemade baked beans, potato salad, and deviled eggs. I also managed to squeeze in another batch of cheesy baked grits. The birthday girl feel asleep on her daddy's lap around 8:45 last night!

 I realized this morning we never got around to painting her face as I had hoped nor had I gotten a single photo of just her. So we had a morning photo shoot the day after her party. I will end with a few of those photos. I will also say, we have napped hard today as well as cleaned!

I am no face painter! But it was sure fun playing.

Until next year!