I met Mary for the first time through a mutual friend. She wanted me to help her plan an Enchanted Forest Garden/fairy princess party for her daughter, Erin's 7th birthday. Mary and I immediately clicked and became instant friends.
The result I'm about to show you is what happens when you throw an artist and an extremely talented horticulturist together.
Mary owns a nursery on a large property that included beautiful gardens with a pergola set among them, all bordered by acres of pine forest - the perfect setting for an Enchanted Forest Garden party. Like myself, Mary and Erin love the look of fairy lights after dark.
Because her nursery business was open and customers present until 5 p.m. Mary opted for a late afternoon running into the evening party, which was perfect to highlight all of the lighting we incorporated into the Enchanted Forest/Garden. All 6 of the girls loved it.
I'm going to start with the staging this time so you can visualize what we did.
Photo credit: Source unknown
We started with staging the pergola, threading twisted kraft paper vines and Spanish moss garland
between the roof joists. We threaded creeping vines through the lattice work panels.
The photo at left doesn't do justice to the garden setting of Mary's pergola but it was as close as I could come. When standing in Mary's pergola all one sees is flowers, flowers and more flowers of every variety. Her garden is absolutely gorgeous.
​
She'd lined all of the garden pathways with swaying solar LED firefly lights which made the garden look magical before we staged a thing.
Photo credit: Pinterest
We lined the back wall of the pergola with sheer white tulle draping and fairy lights. We framed this backdrop with more vines and Spanish moss garland. This would be the backdrop for the girls' dining table.
Photo credit: Pinterest
Yet we both felt something was lacking and little Erin came up with the solution. (The more Mary and I put together the staging, the more excited and involved Erin became so I put her to work as my co-DIY'er.)
She saw this on Pinterest and wanted it as the 'entry arch' to the pergola.
Mary's pergola had electricity running to it, which was a plus. A chandalier hung over the dining table, which Mary decorated to look something like this.
We stocked and glued corrugated cardboard boxes together to form the book. We laid large sheets of kraft paper on the floor and antique smudged them with orange and tan distress ink, blending the 2 into one another in places.
I drew the castle in pencil and let Erin go over it with a fine tipped Sharpie.
Same with the book text.
​
We made the side 'book pages' lines using the Sharpie and a yardstick.
When all of the ink had dried thoroughly, I began working the kraft paper in strip sections, spraying it with spray adhesive and tacking it to the corrugated boxes, as Erin followed me with a 2x4 to push any air bubbles out and get a wrinkle free finish to the glued kraft paper. We then hot glued draping vines to the top of the book. Once it was set in place, Mary decorated the bottom of the book with potted ferns and we used 2 of my white spotlights to light up the book. It turned out to be beautiful when lit up.
Mary and I then sat down and went through our inventory of what we both already had that we could use for staging as we had a pretty large area to stage between the garden and forest surrounding the gardens. We drew out the placement of every prop so we had a blueprint to work off.
​
The smaller waterfall from my Jungle Safari transformed into a lit Enchanted Forest waterfall.
Photo credits: Pinterest
The styrofoam well that served as a coffee table for my Medieval party...
I stacked and glued together corrugated boxes to form the well side pillars. Two large rectangular pieces of corrugated formed the roof, the 4 roof supports were made from leftover pieces of styrene I had. I did end up repainting the entire well to get everything to match but that didn't take long at all since I only had to do the lines between the rocks on the pillars. When the paint had dried, I hot glued vines in places on the well.
Photo credit: Dreamstime
To make it look even more like a wishing well, I lined the well with a plastic liner so it actually held water once we had the well in position, then threw a bunch of my spare change into water and bottom of well.
​
Warning: The girls turned this into a party activity when they saw all the coins in the bottom of the well. They were bound and determined to collect all those coins and divvy up the booty. Mary and I had to put our foot down when they came up with a plan to dangle the smallest girl at the party upside down by her legs, with her head underwater to scoop up all of the coins. Yeah, we didn't need a drowned guest with a broken neck. The girls did eventually figure out how to get all the coins...but be forewarned, what we adults fail to think of the kids WILL think of!
My styrofoam benches turned into Enchanted Forest benches fit for a fairy to perch upon...
Photo credits: Pinterest
The steamer trunk I'd used for my Pirate and Jungle Safari parties...
Photo credit: Pinterest
My 3 lighted white yard decoration deer from my Christmas and Winter Wonderland parties...
Mary brought in a couple of garden carts that she decorated with fairy floral arrangements.
Mary purchased garden statuary wholesale to sell at her nursery so she scored 4 resin fairy garden statues, 3 of them with solar lights.
You can get all 3 here, currently at a discounted price of $35 and less.
Photo credit: Haladays
Photo credits: ITIN
The 4th fairy held a bird seed container. We filled that container with wands of fairy dust.
Photo credit: ITIN
Photo credit: Pinterest
These are Pixie Stix with glitter stars hot glued to the tops of the straws.
I used silver star mini Christmas ornaments from Temu, cut the strings off and used the piece where the string had gone through to hot glue the star to the Pixie Stix.
Tip: Use tweezers when hot gluing the stars on the Pixie Stix so you don't burn your fingers.
Mary and I still wanted more lighted props so we set about making some.
Photo credit: Pixiehill.com
Photo credit: Rock Painting Guide
The following week I had Erin with me, we'd had to pick up some things at my house and on the way back to her house I had to stop at the town dump to get rid of my garbage.
The guys at the dump know me well. (Maybe TOO well!) Ernie the dump guy on duty that day came rushing toward me, telling me "I put away something that was dropped off for you! 8 chairs...I checked them over, they're perfectly sturdy, all that's wrong with them is the seat upholstery is worn. You want em?"
HMMMM...I had an idea.
Ernie and I loaded all 8 chairs into my car.
"What are THOSE for?" Erin asked, her nose wrinkling in apparent disgust.
"Your party."
"EWWW NO! THAT'S GROSS!" she squealed.
"Tell you what...if you don't like them when we're finished with them, you don't have to use them at your party. Deal?"
​
A couple days later I brought Erin to my house. I had the chairs laid out on a huge tarp in the yard.
"Watch and learn, Grasshopper" I told Erin.
I'd cleaned all of the chairs up with TSP beforehand. I handed her a can of gold spray paint and showed her what to spray and how. When the paint had dried we set to work hot gluing.
.png)
Six year old's have very short attention spans and I figured Erin would lose interest after the first chair was finished. I was wrong. She went to town with me on all 8 chairs. Mary didn't know we were making them and she couldn't wait to surprise her mom with the moss chairs she'd made.
​
You don't have to coat the chair fabric with paint as shown in the video. If you have any bare spots you can simply go in and patch with moss. Apply the hot glue to the chair fabric as instructed in the video. Don't apply the hot glue to the moss pieces.
This project isn't as labor extensive as it sounds. Erin and I could glue an entire chair in 30-40 minutes. We didn't apply any flowers to our chairs being the girls would actually sit in them.
Erin was getting into the whole DIY thing so wanted to make some big mushrooms to scatter around the forest area.
​
Paper mache, paint and glitter.
Tablescapes
Erin had school photos of all of her party guests so we used those to personalize the girls' pages, assigning 2 pages in the book to each of her friends to leave their messages.
​
Mary had found little fairy dolls to use as party favors placed at each girl's table setting. Apparently they're not available anymore because I couldn't find them...but I ran across the cutest fairy dolls ever at Etsy's Fabulous Fairy Factory, including this adorable Enchanted Forest fairy.
We used on of my round banquet tables for the dining table as it would seat all 8 of us.
We underlit a sheer white draped tablecloth and laid a forest themed topper over that.
It matched Erin's moss chairs perfectly.
​
For the centerpiece Erin and I made a woodsy scene in which we placed a scrapbooked guest book her guests could sign and write birthday messages in.
Photo credit: Pinterest
Photo credit: Fabulous Fairy Factory
Since Erin had become quite the little DIY'er, we put her in charge of making name place cards for her table.
They aren't inexpensive ($119.92 in U.S. dollars, this is a UK business) but no 2 are alike as the gal handcrafts each one individually. She's been handcrafting fairies for over 20 years and has quite the collection of different fairies available.
If you want an extra special birthday gift for your little fairy princess one of these dolls would fit the bill.
We used green and gold disposable dinnerware.
Photo credit: Etsy
We had her glue some fairy cupcake topper picks into the pine cones as well.
​
We had to stage a second table to hold the snacks and birthday cake and we opted for a simple leafed tablecloth. Mary and I had my cake maker/decorator friend make the cake. It was great and Erin was thrilled with it.
A special birthday present
My little DIY assistant and I had become quite close during the preparation for her party. I'd been wracking my brain for an idea for a birthday gift for her that would be as special as she was.
Early on she'd been bugging Mary to buy her a new outfit to wear to her party. (We gals tend to hit that "I have nothing to wear!" early in life. LOL)
​
I found instructions for making the dress below. With some guidance from my Broadway costume designer friend I managed to sew the dress.This DIY tulle dress is not only filled with flowers but also delicate battery operated twinkling lights. This can be made in any color you like to make your fairy princess feel magical!
Mary made a floral crown to match the dress.
​
I then bought electric wings to go with the dress.
To finish off the outfit, I made green glitter fairy shoes.
Photo credit: Deviant Art
Photo credit: Design Intuition
It was almost comical (to me, not so much Mary) listening to Erin repeatedly plead with her mom to take her shopping for a fairy outfit, having no idea one was headed her way.
​
We sat Erin down the night before her party and Mary told her we had 3 birthday presents for her that she could open early. The look on that girl's face when she saw her fairy costume was a Kodak Moment - especially when she discovered the dress lit up and the wings moved. You would've thought that girl had won a $10 billion lottery. Even Dad was impressed! And her little friends were stunned when they saw her in it.
As for me, I was just glad we'd managed to make her so happy and her 7th birthday so memorable.
Invitations
I didn't have to handle the invitations, Mary had already taken care of those.
However, she kept a keepsake scrapbook for each of her kids so I made a keepsake momento for the birthday girl's scrapbook.
​
I did something similar to the piece at left, using watercolor, ink and scrapbook embellishments.
Then I dropped in fairy wings and overlaid a photo of Erin over them.
​
For your own party, consider doing something like the photo below left - same type of invitation I used for both my Medieval and Pirate parties.
It's easy to create soft deckled edges on your invitations. We scrapbookers have a tool (mold) to do this but if money is tight, you can also use a deckle edge scissors. I recommend buying a set of these scissors.
They each give you different decorative edges and I use mine all the time for artsy craftsy projects.
Food/Menu
As this was an evening party (actually a sleepover for the girls) we served only snacks and birthday cake.
But here are some ideas for your own Enchanted Forest/Garden party.
Caterpillar Sticks from Evite.com
Flower-shaped chocolate covered pretzels
Toadstool Marshmallows from Your Bella Festa
Teacup treats holders for your fairy teatime. This is so cute. Found on Disney
That about wraps up our Enchanted Forest/Garden fairy princess party. Erin told us after the party it was the "best birthday party EVER!"
(And yes, she still has her moss chairs.)