19979

Tinkerbell & Fairy Friends -7yr- Curly Font Invite

June 2009

Melodee in Riverton, Ut  USA

Runner Up

My daughter is crazy about fairies, and of course wanted a Disney Fairy party for her 7th birthday. 

Invitations were simply store bought Tinkerbell type, but I wrote in the same curly font all the necessary time, date, place etc in a pink pen to give it a bit of a personal touch.  All the girls (and moms) liked seeing their names on the envelope written so whimiscally. I used this same handwriting throughout everything in the party. 

Upon arrival to our front door, there was a sign my husband made with a picture of Rosetta (daughter's favorite fairy friend) and beneth the picture it said, join the party in Pixie Hollow (Backyard)" with an arrow pointing the way.  This way we were able to keep everything outdoors.  Ribbons were tied on fence posts with one strung from post to post to create a make-shift curtain rod.  On this ribbon I had hangers holding wings and tutus. 

The wings I was lucky enough to find at a dollar store but can be purchased online from Oriental Trading Co. for slightly more or if you have more time than I can be homemade using coat hangers and nylons.  The tutus are super simple to make.  For one tutu get a yard of tule cut down the fold and then into roughly 3 inch strips.  For the waistband you can use regular elastic you buy in a sewing store and sew it into a sircle waistband or I bought the elastic headbands (8 pack also at the dollar store). 

Now you simply tie the strips of tule to the waistband.  I folded the strip in half put the fold over and around the elastic then tucked the two ends of the other half into the folded end and pulled tight.  Super quick.  It works with a simple square knot too.  You can also do the same thing with ribbons but it will cost more.  I did a combination of ribbon and tule and they looked great.  You can use more tule to make the tutu more full but as I had 16 girls invited I was trying my best to keep costs down.    So the first thing we did at the party was get each girl dressed as a fairy in their wings and skirt.  This worked out well as they all arrived at different intervals.  Those who came early were able to help those arriving later get dresses.  

Once we had everyone accounted for I explained that fairies love everything to do with nature and so each of them got to have a from nature fairy crown "party hat".  I have a curly willow in my yard which constantly needs trimming.  About a month before the party I trimmed some of it's young branches off and wove those into small wreaths/crowns.  They're very bendy and pliable when freshly cut and it's simple to shape into a circle.  By the party they were dried and hardened into the crown shape. 

Then my daughter and I had made 3 flower hair clips for each girl.  The girls could then decorate their crown with the clips and can later use them in their hair on a regular day or clip them on their bag or shoe or where ever!  The hairclips are so simple to make it almost feels like cheating.  We bought a bunch of silk flowers in colors we liked --we used flowers with daisy  or sunflower like petals in different sizes.  You pull the flowers off the wire stem and then pop off whatever center they have so you can separate all the rings of petals. 

Next we bought some cute scrapbooking brads from JoAnnes but you can find them in any craft store.  You'll also need to buy the metal aligator hair clips.  I bought mine from Sally on the box they're labled as "Metal Single Prong Clips".  Now you're ready to assemble.  Put combinations of petals together slip a brad in the center hole hold the metal hair clip open and push the brad (with petals already on it) through the center slit of the top prong on the hairclip and open the brad to hold it all in place.  You can leave it like that or cover the brad prongs with cloth tape (like bandage tape you can buy near the bandaids)to make it look more finished and so it won't snag in hair. My daughter liked to mix the petals and layer them like a large red petal on bottom then a medium white and then small red on top.  Or pink red yellow or put the leaves behind the petals.  She had a lot of fun being creative and each flower clip was unique. 

This would be a great party activity if you have a smaller guest list than we did.  As it was we let the girls decorate their crowns with the already made clips in the way they wanted.  Some put the flowers all in front or all in back or evenly spaced around showing their individual talents and personality.   We explained that in the Tinkerbell movie each fairy had a special talent and helped Tink try out their talent and the fairies sent us activities to let us try their talents too.  I said the first talent was from a boy fairy and all the girls shouted out "Terence!"  So they were obviously familiar with the movie.  I said that Terence had sent over some Pixie Dust so we could all have some pixie magic.  I had bought a can of glitter hair spray from Zurchers Party Store.  I covered the label with pretty glittery scrapbook paper and wrote in my fairy font "Pixie Dust".  I sprayed each girls' hair and they loved it.   

Then I said were were all going to try the Tinker talent.  Tinkerbell left some small "pots" ( I used small plastic cups to keep costs down but you could get clay pots) for us to decorate.  Each one had the girls' name already on it and was filled with tinkerbell stickers they could use to decorate the cup with.  I explained that they needed to be sure to take care of their garbage (sticker backs) so we didn't accidentally hurt or choke a fairy or one of her animal/insect friends.  The girls took this seriously and did a great job throughtout the entire event--which also made for less cleanup when the party was over! Again a smaller party could paint or be more elaborate in the tinkering decorating.   After the pots were decorated Rosetta the garden fairy had some potting soil and seeds for us to plant (I save the heads of my marigolds at the end of each growing year.  When they dry out pull the head apart the the stick looking things are actually the seeds.  This is what we planted so I didn't have to buy any seeds).   

Then Silvermist the water fairy had a special bottle of rain for each girl to use to water her seeds and take home with her to water it at home.  They were 8 oz water bottles I had been saving up peeled off the label and made my own label out of the glittery scrapbook paper again and wrote "Rain" on the label.  Then using a small screwdriver tip I punched 3 holes into each lid so when you turned the bottle upside-down it sprinkled water.  I only filled the bottles 1/4 full so they wouldn't drown the seeds or have things spilling when they took it home.   

Next Iridessa the fairy of light had instructions to place their seed cups in a bright sunny spot while we did the other activities.  My original activity for Iridessa (and Terence Faun and Vidia) got vetoed by my husband.  I was going to fill our enclosed trampoline with colorful balloons making sure there was at least one yellow one for each girl.  The yellow were to represent sunlight.  The plan was to let them on one or two at a time and in a given amount of time (like 60 secs) they had to jump and catch a beam of sunlight (yellow balloon) and then bring it out with them.  The jumping would've been the speed fairy (Vidia).  Then they were going to hold the yellow balloon over their head while I popped it and it was going to be full of glitter (pixie dust) which would have fallen on them and dusted them (Terence).  That's where my husband said no.  He hates glitter.  Calls it the herpes of craft supplies.  And he has a point unglued glitter does get everywhere.  Our compromise was the hairspray because it at least had some "glue" to keep it more or less in place.  But maybe someone out there has more pull than  I and can use my idea.   

So instead of all of all of that while Iridessa was warming our seed cups we played a game of Duck Duck Goose but changed the name to incorporate Vidia's and Faun's talents.  We called it Pixie Pixie Animal.  Play it the same way only say Pixie Pixie Pixie, and then whoever was "it" could say any favorite animal friend they could think of.  We had the obvious kitties and ponies and dogs but my favorites were the elephant dolphin and turtle. Vidia's speed/wind talent was the running around Faun's animal talent was naming the animal.  The girls loved running with their wings and ribbons flying behind them.  With my large group near the end of the game I had to have everyone who had been picked lay on their stomach so we could see who still needed a turn and it worked out great--one of the best pictures we got.  Now all the talents had been covered so it was time to open gifts and then have cake and ice cream.  I called each girl up to give her gift so I was able to keep track of who gave what so we can write thank you notes later.  The best part was any time the wind picked up and blew the tissue paper from the gifts about the yard the girls would all yell "Vidia!  Stop blowing away our party!  She must be jealous!" 

I made Everblossom cupcakes because in the movie the Everblossom designates when it's time to go to the mainland and bring spring.  Simply make cupcakes (in Tinkerbell liners) Frost with white frosting then take white candy melts (unmelted) and place the disks  on the cupcakes as flower  petals--6 flat down on the outer edge to make the first ring then 4 placed standing up at an angle so they look like opening petals.  Then a candy center like an m&m or gumdrop skittle whatever you have on hand.  Also to make the ice-cream go more easily ahead of time scoop one scoop into a cupcake liner (store on a cookie sheet) and re-freeze.  Then at the party they just have to grab a cupcake and an ice-cream scoop and put it on their plate.  No waiting in line for a scoop. We had Rain water to drink--fairies don't have soda or kool-aide.  We had about 10 minutes after that where the girls had some free play to just imagine being fairies about the yard while we waited for parents to pick them up. In their take home bags they had Tinkerbell markers  and flower rings (found at the dollar store) as well as some jewel buttons I found on sale that they can button onto their Crocs. And finally some Pixie Sticks. They also took home their wings tutus seed cups and bottle of rain.

Everything went off just as planned and we had no problems.  I already had parents call back and say how much fun their daughter had!    We had such a large group because my daughter attends a different school than the neighborhood school.  So we had to invite the neighborhood friends as well as the school friends.  This meant that half of the group of girls didn't even know the other half.  What I loved about this party is because we were celebrating the fact that each fairy had her own special talent it made it easy for the girls to also feel special about their own talents and we can all be friends even if we do things differently.  And the various activites allowed for both individual expression as well as group play.  Because I got everything either on sale at the dollar store or I recycled I was able to keep the costs relatively low for as many girls that we had.  Look around at what you already have on hand and you might be surprised at what you can dream up with your own individual talents.  There's a bit of fairy magic in us all."

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