Fairy Theme Garden Tea Party at the Small House

White Oak Studio Designs
by White Oak Studio Designs
I "planted" this fairy garden tepee for my granddaughters summer visit. My 5-year-old granddaughter loves fairies and tea parties and I wanted to recreate them both for her. This leafy tepee bower was my idea to give us a special place to gather, to give her a place to hang-out and use her creative mind. And of course as a photographer, I wanted a special place to take some portraits as well.
Grandfather and granddaughter making memories with a fairy themed tea party in the Small House garden.
Wide view of the bower during the tea party
We started out by cutting sassafras branches from our property to make this tepee. We laced them together to form a structure. We added three chunky logs; two as seats and one as table. I added bark chips to control the mud and give safe footing to little feet.


The garden bower before the netting was put up.
Simple log stump chairs and table before the bark chips were put down.
Then I planted three packets of Hyacinth Beans climber seeds, watered and waited. The plants had about a month to grow before the planned event. They didn’t grow as fast as I had hoped because our weather was cool and wet this summer so I improvised and used white netting left over from our "garden ghosties" we made one Halloween season to fill in.


The hyacinth beans climber seeds beginning to grow on a trellis I bought and planted for them.
Other tepee styles and examples taken from the Internet.
Another example of tepee.
In the meantime, I baked treats and kept the garden patch free of weeds. We used a set of children's Phoenix Bird china tea set that her father has used as a child. I love the continuation of passing this traditional down from father to daughter.


Love how this Internet tepee has completely overgrown into a play cave.
Another example of fully grown beans providing shade and inspiration for creative play, taking from the Internet during my research phase.


When the big day arrived my granddaughter come, to my delight, in a darling pink sundress, flip flops and fairy wings. Her grandpa agreed to be her tea party companion and we all had a ball and made a great memory!
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