fairies at play

For my soon-to-be second daughter, my sister and best friend hosted a Flower Fairy baby sprinkle, a pretty and playful party for girls only - tread gently now, there may be a Flower Fairy afoot...

REAL GOOD PARTY ADVICE
Flower Fairy invitations can be found at Hyperama, and are reasonable and really pretty! Paper plates, cups and napkins are also available and they even had a gorgeous scrapbook album to be used as a guestbook.

At the entrance a rose wreath welcomed guests, but politely asked them to tiptoe in. The wreath can be used afterwards to hang on a bedroom door or wall.

To spruce up plain white linen napkins, lavender sprigs were plucked from the garden and tied with pink satin ribbon.

For room decorations, wooden letters were painted in pink to spell out FAIRY. These could then be later used to decorate a girl's bedroom bookshelf.

For a fun and flirty drink, pink lemonade was purchased from Woolworths, and the bottles are nice enough to serve in - so pink straws and butterfly cut outs were added..

For cupcake toothpicks, Flower Fairy Stickers were purchased online through www.efairies.com, but look at Exclusive Books and other newsagents. These were then stuck onto thin bamboo skewers.

For the favour packaging, clear vellum lunch bags were decorated with green paper card cut to look like grass, and sealed at the top with a feather butterfly and pink satin ribbon.

The favours were all fairy themed, but only the seed packets were the Flower Fairies brand. The notebooks were plain white with a pen, but a pink sticker read "Fairy Notes". The lip balm was dubbed "Fairy Dust" and plain white mint tins filled with pink endearmints had pink stickers stating "Fairy Drops".

Two glass jars were labelled "Make a Name" and "Take a Name". The former requested guests to provide the mom to be with suggested baby names, and the latter was each attending guest's fairy name, based on the Original Fairy Name Generator - www.emmadavies.net/fairy.

FLOWERFAIRIES.COM
If you are planning a Flower Fairy party for a baby shower, Halloween or little girls Birthday Party, you must visit their website. It is full of inspiration, ideas and best of all free products!

INVITATIONS
Beautiful invitations are available, in six different styles, all in pdf.; simply download, print in colour, fill in the party details and fold. Slip into pink envelopes, add some "fairy dust" (party confetti) and write your guests' names with a glitter pen - all ready to hand out to them!

PLACEMATS
Perfect for little ones, simply print one for each guest's place setting. There are eight different ones to choose from. Tie a few pastel coloured crayons together with ribbon and encourage guests to colour in their picture. This can be done as part of an activity or while you wait for everyone to arrive. You could also print these postcard size and then purchase small picture frames for guests to decorate with glitter, cut-out felt and fabric flowers, sequins and diamante. They can then place their artwork in the frame and take this home as a pretty party memento.

DRESS UP
In addition to our article on how to make a fairy costume, take a look at their Dress Up section, which has real fancy Holly, Daisy and Buttercup choices together with step-by-step instructions and pictures. And you will definitely want to try your hand at making Shirley Poppy's Fairy Dust Face Glitter.

PLACECARDS
Visit www.flowerfairiesprints.com; here you will find pictures that you can save of each flower fairy for each letter of the alphabet. Simply print the letter for each guest's first letter of their first name and attach this to place cards or peg to their favour party bag.

PARTY BANNER
Make a banner by printing the alphabet letters in A5 to spell out the baby's future name or that of the mom, or simply "BABY SHOWER" or "PARTY" are equally as nice!

RECIPES
Be sure to take a look at the flowerfairies.com website for their party recipes when you plan your party menu; these include:
• Strawberry's Delicious Tarts
• Buttercup's "Fairy Gold" Fairy Cakes
• Candytuft's Enchanting Fairy Fudge
• Almond Blossom's Springtime Sugar Almonds
• Acorn's Autumn Morsels
• Nasturtium's Fairy Nectar

PARTY PICKS

For cupcake picks you can print out the alphabet letters, or alternatively there are many fairy pictures to select from the "prints" website. You can also print out part of the invitation and thank you templates (each one's back page) that all feature stand-alone fairies, perfect for the picks!

THANK YOU CARDS
Lastly, and equally as stunning as the invitation, there are six thank you card templates that you can print and then send your gratitude and best wishes to your guests.

FLOWER FAIRY PAPER PRODUCTS AND GUESTBOOK HYPERAMA
FLOWER ROSE WREATH, BUTTERFLY GIANT PUNCH, FAIRY NOTEBOOKS, LIPBALM, MINT TINS, RIBBON, FAIRY WOODEN LETTERS IN GOOD COMPANY
FEATHER BUTTERFLIES, PINK STRAWS FLOWERSPOT
CUPCAKES ANNICA'S DELI
PINK LEMONADE WOOLWORTHS