A Midsummer Night's Fairy Party

In which I plan a party that causes Bob to give me the side eye multiple times, and in which the girls and I enjoy ourselves immensely.  

So now that we have this large, flat stump in our back yard it has just been begging for a picnic or tea party or something.  And I grew up with this gorgeous book- A Time to Keep by Tasha Tudor.  It's filled with tiny valentine's delivered by Sparrow Post, Birthday Parties in the woods with favors made from walnut shells...

The birthday cake comes floating down the river (this totally captivated me as a child- and it's all based on the author's real life!) and they followed candles thru the woods to a manger scene...

I'm also fond of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and the girls like learning all of the Fairies names in the BabyLit version.   

Sooo... somewhere in the depths of my sleep deprived brain, I had an idea and started to plan.  

One afternoon a few weeks ago I left three tiny flower circlets on a bed of ferns on the stump for the girls to find.  They were really not sure what to think of that.  "Are Faeries real?  Where did the ferns come from?"  (That was from the unobservant child- haha- we have ferns in our flower beds.)

I stayed up waaaay too late one night making walnut shell favors like in the book. 

Bob was a little bit confused when I bought whole walnuts, and then he saw these- "wait, you bought them for a craft?!"  haha.  I mean, I've been eating them too...

I thought they turned out cute. 

I used little "free gift" mini figures that I'd gotten with a dollhouse order inside each shell.

With more time and better materials they could be so adorable!  I really liked the mushroom one for some reason.

The morning of the party I snuck three little notes out to the mailbox on their playhouse.  

Peasblossom, Titania, and Puck have rather familiar handwriting... 

I sent them out to check while they were still in their pajamas.  hehe.  They were so funny... a mixture of excitement and curiosity.

They were impatiently waiting all day so we kept busy making flower crowns.

And prepping food- the fairies specifically requested cookies, lemonade and strawberries.  :D  

After supper we let them watch a movie so that I could set up without them noticing.  Miriel got to help me.  

My initial thought in putting fabric up on the fence was to block the view of the cemetery; with the sunset back-lighting it was positively dreamy. 

Three excited little girls.

Whoah! There's something at the stump!  

They thought the walnut favors were pretty cool.

Miriel was there for the snacks.

And for all the glowing lights.

Grandma Kathy's vintage tin plates made an appearance.  :)

Little Miri sneaking up for more.  :)

Daddy did have to teach them how to light sticks on fire in the votive lighted path.

:)

Fire and fireflies...

Then the sun went down and it was time to say goodnight and go to bed.  

Such a fun evening... the weather was perfect and I probably took way too many pictures, but they will not be little forever and they will not always think a faerie party in the backyard is a good time.  (Oh, and they figured out that it was me and not real fairies so no worries about that.)  

(I think they picked every.single. clover flower in the yard to make "confetti." crazy kids.)

Blessings.