Sunday, May 24, 2009

A Tulip Tenth Birthday

Our stalks are very straight & tall,
Our colours clear & bright;


Sunshine turned ten this Sunday. The day began with Mass at the monastery and a birthday blessing from the Abbot. Since she is still very much enamored with flower fairies, she wanted a repeat of last year's party only with the tulip fairy (one of her favorites) as it's central focus.

Too many-hued to name them all --
Red, yellow, pink, or white.
And some are splashed, & some, maybe,
As dark as any plum.

The decorations looked similar to last year with the addition of lots and lots of pretty tulips (real and artificial). Husband even made streamer tulips float above the entrance to the playroom which you can see in the top right corner of the picture above.

Grammie gave her a bouquet of tulips along with a gorgeous vase decorated with frosted tulips to put hold them. Thank goodness these delicate beauties were still in season!

A mini-mani for the birthday girl and her sister was a special surprise outing since our plans to visit the botanical gardens were hampered by the weather. We had tulip decals that one of the ladies was able to secure to Shortcake's thumbs, but Sunshine's wouldn't cooperate so she was treated to a painted flower instead.

From tulip-fields across the sea
To England did we come.
We were a peaceful country's pride,
And Holland is its name.

We painted shirts with tulips designs. I cut out the tulip shapes using clear contact paper. The girls blocked off squares with masking tape and placed the tulip stickers in the middle then painted over them with a sponge brush. A dabbing technique works best! When the paint was dry, we removed the stickers and the tape and voila...

My mom's is in the middle with Sunshine's on the left and Shortcake's on the right. This was so much fun. They are already making plans to paint shirts for every season; leaves in the fall, fruit in the summer, snowflakes in the winter, etc....

Now in your gardens we abide --
And aren't you glad we came?

She originally wanted a round cake with frosting tulips on top, but in a fit of birthday excitement, decided to let Mommy get creative. I made a giant cupcake and decorated it with flower fairy figurines. Tulip at the top, of course, along with Willow and Forget-me-not. She loved it! And we love her!

Next up... Bigboy turns 5!

(I am back dating these for my own scrapbooking purposes. Sorry if that confuses anyone.)


13 comments:

  1. Oh, wow, Charlotte! You are always such an inspiration for celebrations of all kinds. What a perfect tulip party for Sunshine! Happy birthday to her! What a lucky girl she is!

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  2. Happy birthday to your daughter! I love this idea and will be "schneebing it" for next year when my own Flower-fairy loving daughter turns 10 ...

    Thanks for sharing your creativity with us all ....

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  4. (sorry for the glitch; let's try again) I am new to this whole flower fairy thing, but my daughter is enamored! Just where do you get those beautiful little flower fairy figurines?! We have a September birthday, so I'm planning ahead. Thanks.

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  5. Antonina,
    We are fans of the Cicely Mary Barker flower fairies specifically. Most of our figurines have come from Efairies although this year I had to order one from Amazon because Efairies was out of stock. My girls first fell in love with flower fairies through The Girls' Book of Flower Fairies. They can sing all of the songs on this CD and feed themselves a steady diet flower fairy chapter books.

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  6. Happy birthday, Sunshine! What a beautiful birthday for a beautiful girl, inside and out!

    Love, The Stirlings

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  7. We love birthday themes here as well and I always show our children yours.
    We have used a few as 'Jumping off' ideas too and used your pirate cake earlier in the year (instead of the other one I have made 3 times already) and we had a fairy cake last year too.
    How ever did you get that giant cupcake to work? It looks so great!!!

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  8. The giant cupcake was made with this pan. (I am a cake pan junkie!) It baked up fine although I took someone's advice to bake one side at a time. The top section has a tendency to cook faster than the bottom section.

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  9. Wow! So lovely! What a beautiful birthday. You've just planned my next party, Charlotte - thank you!! Happy birthday to your sweet Sunshine!

    And I love that gorgeous blue in your dining room!

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  10. Happy Birthday Sunshine! It looks beautiful Charlotte!

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  11. What fabulous photos, happy birthday to Miss 10 year old!

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  12. Happy Birthday to Sunshine! I felt more girly just looking at your beautiful photos. That was a fabulous cake, and I love the T-shirts.

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  13. Happy Birthday Sunshine!!

    Charlotte, you never cease to amaze me with the splendid Birthday parties you come up with for your children!!! SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!

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