Our Pirates And Fairies Party

Our Pirates and Fairies Party

I am very excited about this post! 

One of the best parts about being a mom (for me) are the kiddie parties. I love planning them, I love doing all the prep, DIY and shopping. I love seeing it all come together and seeing the girls really enjoy the experience.

But I haven't really published any of our party photos, not even on Instagram. For all the hard work that I put into these parties I figured I'd better do a post about some of them. Who knows it may even give someone else some inspiration.

We have 'shared parties' because Savanna is a January baby and lots of people are still away for the holidays. Also our girls birthdays are only 2 months apart, so we typically hold the party in the middle.

This was our Pirates and Fairies party, when Kesia turned 4 and Savanna turned 2. 
Kesia was crazy about Peter Pan and Tinkerbell at this age, she just loved anything to do with pirates. I brought in the fairies to give a girly element to the day.

Anyway here is what I did to bring the Pirate and Fairy party to life.





The Main Table

I used two long tables and divided them according to the theme, a green table cloth for the pirates and a purple table cloth for the fairies.

The Pirate Table

We were lucky to have a ton of pirate toys already, Kesia was really pirate obsessed at this stage. They made for a some fun decor, the toy pirate ship was a great touch to the table.

I added to the theme by getting some pirate booty and decor items from The Party Spot at Northgate (gold coins, jewels, treasure map, a compass, etc). There were also some chocolate coins scattered in there. 

I thought the plush croc was a cute idea too.
I added in a 'Never Grow Up' quote on a chalk board for a little extra magic.

Pirate theme paper cups, plates and serviettes are easy to find, and we also used paper straws in green for the pirate table.

The pirate balloon was to add some height and fun.



Pirate Swords

I made the swords out of cardboard and felt.

Step one - cut the sword shape out of card board.
Step two - use the cardboard shape to make templates on paper (I like to draw my own templates, but you could find templates online if you need to).
Step three - use the templates to cut the felt, I did different colors for the handle and the sword part.
Step four - sew the felt pieces together and then sew them around the cardboard shape, to make it sturdy.

They held up well for the party and we actually still have a few in our dress up box almost 3 years later.

Fairy Table

This was the girly element of the party.

I had collected all the fairy toys over a few months leading up to the party, the bigger fairy dolls were pretty popular at that stage and available everywhere. 

I love to add little touches and so I made some flowers out of felt to sprinkle across the table. 

There was also a "Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust' chalk board and the Tinkerbell balloon to cement the theme.

The fairy table had the purple paper straws. 


Fairy House

I made Tinkerbell's house out of old flower pots and a toilet roll, a bit of felt for the roof and some paint. It was a fun little project and the girls still have it in their room.

Fairy Wands

I made the fairy wands out of felt, I glued some large kebab sticks to the inside and stuffed the stars to make them plushy. I added some ribbon for pizzazz. The Tinkerbell mug was a souvenir for Disney on Ice.




Bubble Necklaces

The little bubble tubes were from the wedding section of The Party Spot (mom's must always be thinking outside of the box) and I added ribbon to make them into little girl necklaces.

My Top Party Table Tip:

I love to add height to the table layout - a flat table is a boring table.

It is easy to do if you wrap some old boxes in pretty wrapping paper and use them to stack the table in an appealing way. This is a trick I've been using since our very first kiddie party.


Other Decor

Pom Poms - another DIY to add a bit of fun to the tree behind the table. These are so easy to make, there are so many tutorials on Pinterest and you can even fold them up and reuse them for future parties - which I do all the time.

The banners, food labels and cupcake toppers were free printables that I had found on Pinterest. I'm sorry that I don't know exactly which site I found them on, it was a long time ago. This is such an inexpensive way to add to your theme.
I printed out extra cupcake toppers to use on the party packs as well.


The party packs were simple brown paper bags that I decorated with Tinkerbell and Peter Pan printables. I think I had a few sweets in there, some homemade play-dough and some rainbow loom bracelets that I had made. It was a while ago, and I didn't take a photo of the contents of the bags, but I think that was it.

Other Tables

I didn't decorate the other tables, it was an outdoor party after all, and we had to bring everything from home, making it impractical to do too much decorating.

We always have a present table, especially if the party is outdoors, to make sure the presents are not lying around on the ground and getting ruined. Once it is full of presents it also adds to the decor of the party, what party looks complete without pressies. You can see from the photos that I positioned the presents behind the main table to accentuate the party vibe.

There was also a table for the actual food, situated near the braai area. 
And a huge tub filled with ice for the drinks.

As seating is super important if you are hosting adults at your party, we made sure to hire a whole lot of chairs as well.

The Food

Because we live a little far from everyone we know, we tend to have all day parties - people are not going to drive for over an hour for a little two hour party. It also means we have more adults at the party than kids, because it is an awesome excuse to catch up with family and friends that we don't see all that often.
So there must be real food.

At this party my mom had organised some sandwich platters for snacking on while the men got the braai (barbecue) sorted out.

Hubby did boerewors rolls on the braai (there were hot dogs for the kids as well), and I had a few different salads set out as well.

We always make sure that there is tons of bottled water available, as well as juice boxes and other cool drinks. It is damn hot where we live in December. 



The Yummy Stuff

The sweet things that make a party great were all set up on the main table.

We had marshmallow fish and chocolate coins on the Pirate Table.
There were jellybeans for color.

The marshmallow wands I made by dipping the marshmallow in melted white chocolate and then into the sprinkles.
I did the same for the strawberries.

I always have these sugar loop thingies at our parties, they are colorful and yummy and super cheap. You can get a giant sized bag of them at WestPack for like R30.

Also regular crisps for adult snacking.






I had a sweet tray as well, with sprinkle cookies and some other sweets.

I made the chocolate cupcakes myself with box mix (don't judge they were the first thing to be finished) because Kesia must always have chocolate cake.

The Cake

We had a rainbow layer cake with sprinkle icing from Tart Patisserie in Fourways.

It was a thing of beauty and it tasted amazing as well. I thought the pink bow at the bottom was a special touch. On the top there was a 4 for Kesia and a 2 for Vanna made out of fondant. 

I also added a Tinkerbell and Peter Pan figure (BullyLand) and a candle for each child to blow out.










Entertainment

We hired a jumping castle for the party, sadly it was the height of summer and the jumping castle was set up in the sun, and it was simply too hot for the kids to use.

We also had a Tick Tock Croc splash pool for the tiny tots, luckily our venue had a swimming pool just to the right of the party and it was a hit with the bigger kids.

I also always have a colouring table set up for kids that want some quiet time, this time with fairy and pirate coloring pages. To go with our theme I thought it would be cute to have a pirate tattoo station.

And fun was had by all.
It really was a lovely party and a good day, and all the hard work was worth it.


There were some hiccups, as there always are at an event. 

For instance as we started setting up our tables, the sprinklers came on and it took forever to figure out how to get them off again. So we ended up setting up our tables in a muddy mess. Thankfully it was such a  hot day that the mud vanished pretty soon. 

I am super grateful for all the help I received and continue to receive from friends and family when we do our parties. It is not possible to set up a kids party on your own, and I am lucky to have people to help me bring my visions to life.

Thanks for letting me share this party with you, there will be a few more party posts up in the near future. Hope you enjoy them.

With Love,
Chelsea