Sunday, June 1, 2014

Under the Sea Birthday Party







Calling All Mermaids!

Swim on over to Kayleigh’s house for an Under the Sea birthday!


Kayleigh and I absolutely love the water, the lake, the beach, anything to do with sandy beaches, fish, and sunshine. So when we were talking about her 7th birthday, we came up with an Under the Sea theme. There are SO many ideas out there and it was so much fun to come up with the color scheme, the menu, and the favors! I really got to delve into my creative vice for this one and had so much fun!!!  I think we picked this theme out way early and it was actually before the summer had ended the year BEFORE her birthday so we got a lot of the ocean/beach themed items on clearance. Go clearance!

Most of the décor in my house is ocean/beach theme so we did not have to look far for inspiration or spend extra money on décor because we had it around the house.  Starfish garlands, hues of sea green, gold, light pink, and shimmer pearl white complemented the theme. We used glass jars filled with sand, sea shells, and sea glass.

For Halloween, she even wanted to be an Under the Sea Fairy, so I made her costume out of yards of tulle and ribbon and it came out so cute! Take a look! My tulle dress inspiration board on Pinterest can be found here with lots of DIY tutorials.





The Favors

We found really cute starfish wand ideas so I bought the starfish at Christmas Tree Shops, the dowels and ribbon at AC Moore, and with my trusty glue gun, got to work. They came out fabulous! Kayleigh actually used one as part of her Halloween costume. They can be purchased through my Etsy shop here!
We decided to also give out little fish as favors, so for $0.89 each, I found little glass jars at Christmas Tree Shops and filled them with the aquarium rocks and sea glass. 





The fabric was just clearance fabric from Joann's and I found rolls of iridescent shimmery bubble wrap from the Christmas Tree Shops for under a dollar! Perfect! Add some clearance under the sea mermaids and fish, pirate coins, and a treasure chest full of magical mermaid keys and pretend jewels from Michaels and we are done!


The Invitations

The invitations were a turquoise seahorse style that I found on Zazzle.com and I loved them the moment I saw them. They were really wedding invitations, but hey- who doesn’t love repurposing things? They worked perfectly for this party and were a beautiful keepsake for afterwards.

 You can check out the invitation on Zazzle.com here!

I saved a cardboard box and made a treasure chest out of it using brown spray paint, gold glitter spray paint, ribbon, jewel stickers from the dollar section at Michaels, and voila!  I used this to house the “Mermaid Attire” of pink and purple tutus that I got from a wholesale tutu shop for $3 each! I also created a Mermaid Grotto sign to hang above the chest to encourage all little mermaids to don their mermaid attire upon arriving at the party.
I also  made one of those flowing fabric tents out of curtains and an embroidery hoop. For about $14, it makes the perfect grotto for my little mermaid! You can find the how to here.
I loved how Pottery Barn had a “Mermaid’s This Way” sign and so I made my own. This was placed in the driveway to direct all little mermaids to the back yard. We placed clear balloons and clear plastic ornaments (gotten on clearance after Christmas at Michaels) around the back yard to act as “bubbles” I tied them in bunches of 5-6 using balloon weights to hold them down sporadically around the yard. It came out so cute! A real under the sea bash!


I wanted to have a simple and clean look to the party theme and used white table cloths with neutral fish netting or natural placemats. Glass canisters with pink and white sea glass dotted the tables. I created cute little food labels for the food and drinks and found cute ideas for "beachy" names on Pinterest.  Pink and ivory napkins, plates, cups and flatware complimented the décor and reminded me of the color of seashells. These food labels can be found here. Please remember to cite where they came from (me!) if you use them. Thanks!



We also had a special "guest"! A beta fish that Kayleigh named "Shimmer" also was on the dessert table. The gold shell placemats I found for a dollar at the Christmas Tree Shops  a day before the party! So cute.


The Food
We bought shimmer white gumballs and sixlet candies and put them in a fish bowl. Food was simple fare consisting of "Octo-Dogs", Peanut Butter and Jellyfish sandwiches, starfish and shell sugar cookies, grape "seaweed skewers", seahorse and starfish molded chocolate pops, watermelon wedges, carrot and celery sticks, pink lemonade, strawberry mint water, Oyster Pearls (shimmer chocolate candies), Oyster Cookies, Swedish Fish, and many other delicious treats- including the cake!









The Cake
Kayleigh's little cake was a sand castle cake. I used chocolate sea shell molds to make the shells and brown sugar for the “sand”. Then I saw a beautiful tiered cake on Pinterest that had simple vanilla buttercream frosting on it, molded chocolate shells, and sugar sand. Very simple and elegant. I used two 6x3 round cake pans and two 9x2 round cake pans as well as cake boards and it came out great! I also made 12 little cupcakes with sugar sand, buttercream and one gorgeous molded seashell on the top.  I chose to serve the smaller cake with the cupcakes at the kid's party and where we have the family party afterwards,  served the tiered cake then. Both came out better than I could have hoped and it was my first time making a tiered cake! I molded the "7" out of clay and baked it the day before to complement the theme.




Happy Birthday my darling girl! It is hard to believe that you are seven already! Where has the time gone? Please always stay as sweet as you are! Don't grow up too fast! Mumma loves you with all of her heart!


 Be sure to check out my Ocean Birthdays Inspiration Board on Pinterest here!

Overall, I think it came out amazing and I truly enjoyed planning it. Thanks for stopping by! Materials and décor from this party are for rent! Check out my Children's Party Planning and Photography Shop page!

Enjoy!

Ariane :)

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