A Fairy Birthday Party for My Two Little Girls

The Fairy Party Diaries · Part 1

My two little girls are turning one and three. Their birthdays are only a month apart, so we’re celebrating together at the end of October with a fairy party. I’ve been choosing paper fairies, cutting out mushroom houses, and making two little decorative cakes—one for each of them.

One and three. Writing it down makes me pause a little. We’re still right in the middle of these baby years, and already I’m making decorations for a first birthday and a third. I think that’s part of why I’m enjoying putting this party together: it gives me something to make with my hands for this particular moment in their lives.

I’m picturing a colorful little world of fairies, butterflies, flowers, and mushrooms. There is still plenty to do, but the printed pieces are ready and it’s beginning to feel real.

I’m calling these posts The Fairy Party Diaries. I’ll share what we’re making along the way, including the unfinished bits. I’d like to have a record of how it all came together, something the girls and I can look back through when they’re older.

Photo note: These images are based on our own photos of the printed decorations. We used AI to adjust lighting, replace household backgrounds, and arrange the cover collage. Some details and edges may differ from the originals; these are edited progress images, not photos of the finished party.

Starting with the fairies

I started with a printable pack I found on Etsy: about $3 for roughly 120 images when I bought it. That was just the digital pack, before printing and materials. There were far more fairies than I needed, so I picked a small group to build the party around.

I chose a couple whose poses face toward each other. I can picture them on either side of the table, turned toward the girls’ cakes. Then I added two standing fairies and two mushroom houses, one pink and one purple. The fairies needed somewhere to live, after all.

I liked the soft watercolor colors: the pink dresses, lilac flowers, and pale green wings. They’re sweet little faces to spend an afternoon cutting around.

A little world in pink, purple, and yellow

The cakes are painted pink, purple, and yellow, so those are the colors I’m coming back to as I choose the other pieces. The fairies bring in softer greens and creams, too.

The purple mushroom house has these lovely yellow windows and tiny flowers around the door. It’s the sort of detail I hope the girls will enjoy looking at, even if they find something completely different to be interested in on the day.

If you’re making a party like this, picking the illustrations first is a helpful place to start. They give you a few colors to come back to when it’s time to choose flowers and balloons. I’m happy for ours to be a mix.

Grandma is helping, too

The large images are about 60 cm tall. I had them printed, cut the paper shapes with my ordinary scissors, and glued them onto styrofoam board. My mom is helping cut the foam with her heat cutter.

It’s the same cutter she used to make birthday decorations for my brother and me when we were little. She still has it, it still works, and now she’s using it for her granddaughters.

That might be my favorite part of all this so far. I’m making things for my girls with my mom, using something that was part of our birthdays years ago. I understand a little more now about the time she put into those celebrations. There’s a lovely familiarity in finding ourselves here again, with another birthday coming and things to cut out.

I’ll share more of the cutout process in its own post. These photos show the printed designs; I still need to photograph the finished pieces standing up.

A cake for each of my girls

They’re sharing a party, but I wanted each of my girls to have her own cake on the table. These are decorative styrofoam cakes, each made from three tiers of painted discs.

I’ve decorated them with little fairy cutouts, artificial flowers, and butterflies, with a small resin fairy house from the dollar store as a topper. They belong together, but each one is a little different. I like that for a shared birthday: a celebration together, with something of their own.

I still have the little cake banners to make. Those small finishing jobs are waiting their turn.

Still on my list

With the fairies cut out and the cakes painted and decorated, I can see the party beginning to come together. There’s also the less photogenic list of food, tables, and chairs to sort out. Here’s what I’m working toward next:

• Little banners for the two cakes.
• Stickers for the treat boxes, which will go on the main table.
• Mushroom tables and seats. My mom is painting tree stumps to look like little mushrooms, and I’m looking forward to seeing them with the rest of the decorations.
• A trial run of the table. I’m leaning toward one large table, but I need to put the pieces together before deciding where everything belongs.
• Balloons, possibly an arch, closer to the day.
• Food, tables, and chairs. Plenty of ordinary party planning alongside the fairy houses.

Picturing it all together

In my head, the big fairies sit on either side of the two cakes, with the treat boxes nearby and the mushroom houses tucked into the scene. I’ll have to see how that looks on an actual table. Two cakes and a few large fairies take up quite a bit of room.

I’m looking forward to that first moment when we put everything together. For now, I get to enjoy making the separate little pieces and imagining the girls there among them.

If you’re following along for your own party, leave yourself room to move things around. That’s my plan, anyway: start with the cakes and the biggest decorations, then find homes for the little things.

Something to look back on

At one and three, I don’t know how much of this day the girls will remember. I know I’ll want to remember them at these ages, and the things their grandma and I made for them. I hope that one day, when we look through the photos together, they’ll enjoy hearing about the little fairy houses and Grandma’s old cutter.

That’s another reason to keep this diary. The party photos will show how it turned out; these pages can hold a little of what went into it.

Next time, I’ll share more about choosing the printable designs before having them printed large. Then we’ll get into the cutouts, cakes, and all those small things still on my list. I’m glad to have somewhere to gather it all as we go.

If you’re planning a birthday, too, you can find more ideas in our birthday collection.