Anna's 3rd Birthday - A Mermaid Party

WARNING: Longest. Post. Ever.


It has taken me so long to write this post that I am embarrassed. I worked really hard on this party for my sweet girl and it turned out so great that it really deserved a prompt posting, but life as it is, sadly it did not.

So, better late than never, here is goes...

My my sweet little Anna had decided that she wanted a Little Mermaid party to celebrate her 3rd birthday...and since mommy is a fan of the Little Mermaid as well, it seemed as go of an idea as any. (So what, that I had a Little Mermaid poster next to bed in my college dorm room. There is nothing wrong with that.)

As I do with any party, design and themes started with the cake, but I'll get to that later. And, as I am not one to but the themed party goods from the party store (not that there is anything wrong with that), I choose to create most of my own decorations and such.

First, I found a cute turquoise tutu type skirt at the Gymboree. The tulle was stitched on to look like waves. Perfect! I found a plain white t-shirt and attached some beads to the neckline. Then I came across this headband at Fred Meyer glued on a few of the matching bead from the t-shirt and... Viola! Mermaid party outfit!





I found and bought the graphics for the invites and printables online. I had my tech savvy husband ad the colors to match what I wanted and just printed them on our color printer.



Then I started from the outside in. I made this cute 'Mermaids' sign and put it along the walkway to our house. Our Nana happened to have A TON of cool shells and they ended up not only with this sign but all over our party.



I also made this awesome sea inspired wreath for the front door.



If you have ever wanted to cover an entire room in something resembling seaweed then I have found and answer. I took two colors of green crepe paper streamers and ran though my sewing machine on the longest stitch. This ruffled the streamers and I ended up with more ruffly seaweed than I knew what to do with. I was easy, cheap, and I wish I had gotten a better picture of the room for reference. I also printed huge fish from the mermaid graphics set and taped them to the walls as well.





I used our printer and the mermaid graphics to make this sparkly 'Happy Birthday' pennant banner.



More decorations included a huge ship (just like Prince Eric's), lots of shells, framed pictures of Ariel,and a Snarfeblast to name a few. There was even a Dinglehopper in the bathroom!





We also had a huge gold treasure chest filled with sea star wands for the girls and golden tridents for the boys. The tridents were actually red pitchforks from the Halloween section at the party store that I spray painted gold. The treasure chest was also filled with tons of costume jewelry pearl and bead necklaces for the kids to wear.





Melanie and her wand!



I even used the mermaid printables to make water bottle labels and stickers for our goldfish snacks.





I also made some chocolate shells and happy clam cookies for snacking during the party.





Anna made absolutely sure that we were having a pinata at her party. So, I bought a tinkerbell pinata at the dollar store and peeled off the tinkerbell decorations. I used some poster board, glitter, and our printable mermaid to make the pinata match out theme.



The party gift bags were castle shaped beach pails with rock candy, salt water taffy, bubbles, flower bracelets, bead necklaces and rubber ducks. Topped off with a mermaid graphic "thank you" tag of course.



The cake had to be my most favorite part of this party..but let's not kid ourselves, when is it not my most favorite part. But this cake I am especially proud of. I made every aspect of this cake and it is entirely edible. I even sculpted the mermaid from gumpaste myself!





Anna & Slugger (apparently it tasted good too!)




Anna had a great time at the party. Thanks to everyone who helped make it so great!