If you’re celebrating a fairy party – whether it’s just a general “all things fairy” or in honor of your little one’s favorite Disney fairy, we’ve got a few suggestions below. Take your guests on a magical journey as they dress up fairies, enter a fairy realm, and save the fairies! Read on to check out these budget-friendly (with some even more budget-friendly alternatives) here!
INVITATIONS
For parties, get your guests in the mood send out themed invites.
If you’re following this party, we celebrated with a Tinkerbell / Disney fairy themed party and set up the party by building off of the natural talents of each fairy. We also set up the party theme beforehand by telling guests in their invites that there will be a Pixie Hollow adventure: Pixie Hollow has been taken over by Pirates and the fairies aren’t able to do their tasks! We need your help to restore the land by going on some fairy adventures!
DECOR
For our fairy themed party, our little one’s favorite was the blue water fairy. To keep the cost a bit lower, we only had a few things with the actual character on it (a few napkins and cups) but then had everything else (other napkins, more cups, plates, plastic cutlery, tablecloths) in lavender and light blue that matched the color scheme of her favorite fairy. It worked well – wasn’t overwhelmingly themed but all very complimentary.
We also had a “centerpiece” where we printed out her favorite fairy on cardstock but brought it to life by taping it to a bamboo skewer (also used in our kabobs) and sticking it into a styrofoam block. We covered the skewer in blue construction paper to hide it a bit better. You can get the styrofoam blocks at the Dollar store or Michaels but we had some left over from packages. We then used sheer blue tulle ribbon and covered the skewer and block to make it look a bit more festive. Our little one loved it and kept in her room after the party.
ARRIVAL
Most guests will trickle in a few minutes before or after the actual start time of the party. To keep everyone in theme, had a few fairy themed items in an area of the party. Most of them were fairy puzzles or color pages from the Dollar Tree – nothing to fancy, just enough to keep them entertained 😉
FOOD & DRINKS
We tried to keep things “all natural” since fairies live and breathe in nature.
- Fruit bowls. We cut up some watermelon, cantaloupe, or honeydew in half, being careful not to damage the outer rind as we used those as the serving bowls. Then, we used a melon baller to scoop out some watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew. Then, we put the melon balls back in & served them right on the table! Note: you might need to slice a very small piece at the bottom so that the “bowl” stands on its own, but be careful not to cut too much or you might have a hole.
- For the main course, we had kabobs or grilled goodies.
- For a yummy treat, we had candy birds nests. (Note: There are quite a few recipes out there for making realistic looking nests with pretzels, peanut butter or chocolate, and Easter egg shaped candy). We opted for an easier (though arguably less nest-looking) route – just pretzels and a few chocolate eggs in there. If you can’t find any Easter eggs or they’re not in season, chocolate or yogurt covered nuts or raisins work well too!
- We also had blue jello “Dew Drops” in mini bowls.
- Water bottles. We printed out our birthday kid’s favorite fairy holding a dew drop of water & used those to relabel the mini water bottles. You could also go the personalized route on online stores, but the little ones were just as happy with these 🙂
CRAFTS
If you’ve got a craftier group, you can create fairy houses as the main part of your party. We used wood circles (the 8″ Wood Circles (10) plaques would be really nice but they’re much pricier) as the base. You could also use silver buckets or terra cotta flower pots but you might need some styrofoam so the fairy house portion is visible from the top. We then laid out some green construction paper, green pom poms, and rolls of moss for the kids to choose their “grass”. We had blue construction paper, blue pom poms, and blue rock crystals for the water. We had Mini Heart Wood Birdhouse that the kids could paint as the actual fairy house. And each kid got a fairy or two to add to their fairy house (from a TOOBS Fairy Fantasies set)
If you’ve got the budget, the Dollar Tree, Michaels, and other craft stores have nice add-ons (like benches, arches, beds, fairies, dragons, knights, etc…) but it tends to get pricey if you’ve got a big group.
Each guest can then take home their fairy house and see if any fairies stop by!
Note: We did have to use a glue gun to make sure everything was set in place, so adult supervision is needed with the more complex (moss rolls, crystals) houses.
GAMES
For the Tinkerbell theme, (similar to the invite), we told them that they had to save Pixie Hollow! Each of our “tasks” (games ;)) were set up as an adventure where they’d save a bit of this magical land! We has a foam board ready where the kids could add a piece of “Pixie Hollow” after each game to rebuild the land.
Note: we used some items like cotton balls, pom poms, and plastic flowers to give our board more of a 3D feed but you could always use construction paper or have the kiddos draw on the poster board if you’re short on time and/or can’t find those items.
Task 1: Wake the fairies.
We told our little guests that all the fairies had fallen asleep and needed to be woken up! We let each kid pick a printed out fairy image and pretend they were asleep – laying perfectly still without moving. Then, we had the birthday kid try to ‘wake them up’. The catch was that the birthday kid couldn’t touch them (so no tickles or pulling them up into standing positions). Instead, they had to make silly faces, tell jokes, or do just about anything else to make the fairies “wake up” (move in any way).
Once the game is over, hand out fairies for the kids to glue or tape onto the Pixie Hollow board. Note: Depending on your group, you may want to just place each image and wait to glue everything after all the games are done.
Task 2: Help Vidia – the wind fairy -blow the clouds back into place.
We told our little guests that Vidia, the Wind Fairy, needed a bit of helping moving the “clouds”. (We used a our table, but you could also use the floor if you want to have the kiddos blow the clouds across the room). We gave each guest a straw and a cotton ball. Guests must blow through the straw using their “wind” to get their cotton ball “cloud” to move to the finish line.
Once the game was done, we added some blue cloud shapes cut out of construction paper (just to make it more clear that these were clouds) to the board. Then we let the kids arrange and add their clouds (cotton balls) to add to the Pixie Hollow board.
Task 3: Help Fawn – the animal fairy – round up the baby bumblebees into their hives.
We reassured our guests that they did have special animal fairy talents using special tools (wooden or regular spoons) to carry the bumblebees. We asked them to gather up some mini bumblebees using a pink wand (same plastic ware used throughout the party) and carry them across the room to their hives (bowl on the other side of the room). Note: if you can’t get the bumblebees, you could use yellow and black pom poms or print out a few images
Once they’re done with this game, they got to add their bumblebees to the Pixie Hollow board.
Task 4: Help Rosetta – the flower fairy – gather up her flowers.
This one was a bit of a scavenger hunt. Before the party, we added some plastic flowers all around the party area – while they looked like decorations, they also served a second purpose – the object of this game! We told guests to look for a specific type of flower (in different colors). We also had various flowers around the party area so the game wouldn’t be too easy 😉
Once all the flowers had been found, the could add them to the Pixie Hollow board.
Task 5: Help Silvermist – the water fairy – gather the dew drops into the lake.
We had a few options here but ended up going the “easiest to clean” route – #4. If you’ve got the space and weather permits, any of these might work and would definitely be fun.
Once they were done with the game, they could add the “dew drops” to the board.
- Blue water balloon toss – pair up the guests or put them in a circle and have them toss the balloon to each other then into a big bucket.
- Give each guest a mini tin bucket and tell them to get ready to catch the dew drops. Then toss a bunch of blue pom poms in the air.
- Grow some water beads — Note: if you’ve got really small children in the group, you’ll need to watch them carefully —. Add these to a clear colored tub or container, add some water, and watch them grow! It may take a while but you’ll definitely see them get larger after an hour or two and can re-use them as a sensory play area for your kiddo.
- Pass the pom poms. Line up the guests in two lines. Have a big bucket of blue pom poms on one end of each line and an empty bucket on the other side. Guests can scoop up dew drops (pom poms) in their hands pass to the next person in their line. The group that fills up their bucket first wins! For this one, we had a ‘more difficult bucket’ where there were other colored pom poms that the kids had to avoid 😉
Task 6: AND Finally – Defeat the Pirates!
With the board had been completed, we told our little guests that Pixie Hollow has been restored! But, we also told them that they had to vanquish the pirates so they don’t take over again! And, in order to that, they had to open up the Pirate Ship Piñata!
GOODIE BAGS
If you want to keep in theme when you’re guests leave, sprinkle in some fairy themed items for their goodie bag along with any of the regular candy or hand outs you want to give out. If you’ve got a crafty group, you could send your guests home with a collection of items to create a fairy house on their own. Otherwise you could add in some fairy figures, stickers, bubbles, fairy dust (in mini bottle charms)